GAZA CITY - Israel on Wednesday launched its first air strike against Palstinian militants since armed groups began observing a de facto truce, in an attack that Hamas slammed as a "serious escalation".
Palestinian medical sources said Ahmed Shahwan, a 24-year-old Hamas member from Khan Yunis, lost both his legs and an arm in the strike.
An Israeli military source said the attack targeted a Palestinian militant cell in the Khan Yunis area which was just about to launch a mortar attack on a nearby Jewish settlement.
"They were aerially targeted and we identified hitting one of them," the source said. "It was moments before they were about to fire, they had the launcher in place and the missile was in sight."
It was Israel's first air strike since the principal Palestinian militant groups announced on January 21 that they would adhere to an unofficial cooling down period or de facto truce in anti-Israeli attacks.
On February 8, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas followed up the truce by declaring an end to more than four years of violence at a landmark Middle East peace summit in Egypt.
Attacks have dropped considerably since militants began observing the truce, but the Israeli government has repeatedly accused Abbas of not doing enough to disarm the militant groups and there has been intermittent violence.
"The Palestinian people will not keep still in the face of Israeli crimes and aggression," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said after the raid.
"This is a serious escalation."
Reluctant to get involved in controversy about whether or not the cooling down period was over, he said only: "Our people know how to defend themselves".
The Israeli source said the air strike came after four mortar shells had been fired by mililtants within a half-hour period at the settlements of Morag and Neve Dekalim. There were no immediate reports of Israeli casualties.
The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said that its members had fired mortar shells at Morag and Neve Dekalim, the largest Gaza settlement, in revenge for the death of one of its members late Tuesday.
That death raised to 4,758 the number of people killed since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted in September 2000, including 3,696 Palestinians and 988 Israelis, according to an AFP count.
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