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by Christian / Base21 Media Activists
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Five Palestinians were killed and 70 others injured during an overnight raid into Yabna refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah late Saturday, April 19, during which an Israeli soldier was also killed three others injured.

Using loudspeakers, Palestinian fighters announced that the Palestinian resistance also damaged and destroyed four Israeli tanks during the incursion.

More than one hundred Israeli tanks thrust into the refugee camp covered by Apache attack helicopters, in one of the biggest sweeps in more than 30 months of the Palestinians’ Intifada against the Israeli occupation.

“Some Palestinians were seriously injured and Naser Hospital works in tandem with European hospital, which sent medics and ambulances to help the injured,” Dr. Ali Moussa, director of Abu Youssef Al-Nagar Rafah hospital, told IslamOnline.net.

Moussa listed the dead as Hussan Zaanu, 17, Sayeed el Masri, 19, Mohamed al-Hamayda, 20, Nahed al-Nawajha, 29 and Mahmud Abu Koch, 15.

Moussa said Israeli occupation forces prevented ambulances from reaching the injured, urging the residents to stay home in view of a possible new Israeli “massacre”.

Eyewitnesses said Israeli reinforcements stormed the camp, targeting Palestinian activists from Ezzudin Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas.

“The Israeli soldiers are trying to storm houses after having already destroyed more than three houses and two highway shops,” one Palestinian told IslamOnline.net.

“They also destroyed the camp’s infrastructure as well as some streets in Rafah, which fell into darkness due to power outage by Israeli air strikes,” he added.

Qassam Brigades Hit Back

Meanwhile, one Israeli was wounded early Sunday, April 20, as rocket fire from the Gaza Strip hit a home in the southern Israeli town of Sderot setting it ablaze, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoting municipal officials as saying.

“The operation came in response to the Israeli incursion into Rafah refugee camp,” Hamas officials told IslamOnline.net.

The densely populated refugee camp, near to the Israeli-Egyptian border, is home to about 60,000 people.

The BBC's James Rodgers, in Gaza, says there are reports that Israeli soldiers carried out house-to-house searches.

Witnesses said the Israelis had brought empty buses with them, apparently because troops were planning to detain suspected militants.

On Saturday, a Palestinian cameraman was killed by Israeli gunfire in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian medics said.

Israeli occupation troops besieged hospital

Israeli occupation troops on Thursday besieged the Thabet-Thabet hospital in Tulkarm on suspicion that a Palestinian “fugitive” was inside.

Sources in Tulkarm said hundreds of occupation soldiers, backed by tanks, were taking positions outside the hospital and threatening to storm it unless the administration handed the alleged "Palestinian fugitive" over to the occupation soldiers.

However, hospital officials denied that any fugitives were inside, dismissing Israeli allegations as “baseless.”

“This is sheer terror, we call upon the international community to pressurize the Zionist regime to withdraw their forces from here. The presence of so many troops and tanks outside the hospital constitutes a grave danger to the life and health of patients, doctors and nurses,” said a hospital administrator.

The Israeli occupation army has been rampaging in Jenin and Tulkarm in the northern West Bank for the past 48 hours.

Palestinian sources said at least one Palestinian civilian was killed when soldiers opened fire on civilian neighborhoods in Tulkarm.

In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian identified as Mahmoud Louh died of the wounds he sustained last week when an Israeli F-16 fighter warplane bombed a crowded street in downtown Gaza.

The death of Louh brings to 11 the number of people killed in the bombing. Most of the victims are civilians.