9/20/2012 8:03 PM ET
(RTTNews) - Two border security personnel in Hamas-administered Palestine territory of Gaza have been killed and a third critically wounded in an Israeli airstrike along the border city of Rafah, Palestinian officials said Thursday.
Gaza's interior ministry named the two men killed in the latest strike as border guards Lt Ashraf Saleh, 33, and his deputy, Anis Abu al-Aynin, 22. The injured person was identified as a lieutenant in the security forces.
The ministry said the three were "on their routine daily business of inspecting and securing the southern border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt" when they were hit by the Israeli airstrike late on Wednesday night.
Israeli military confirmed the airstrike, which is said targeted "terror operatives." The military said the strike successfully thwarted an imminent terror attack which was in "a very advanced stage of planning".
"Terrorists planned to exit Gaza into Sinai and then enter Israel through our border fence and attack the heart of country during the holidays," the military said, apparently referring to the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur which begins next Wednesday.
The incident follows a relative lull in Israel-Gaza fighting after Palestinian militant factions and Israeli authorities agreed to the Egypt-mediated truce agreement in March. Nevertheless, the informal ceasefire has been violated several times in recent weeks, with Gaza militants firing rockets into southern Israel as well as launching cross-border attacks.
Israel generally responds harshly to such attacks by launching air strikes on suspected militant targets in Gaza. The Jewish nation had imposed a blockade in Gaza after Hamas came to power in the Palestinian territory in June 2007, ousting secularist Fatah party led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Recently, Israel eased its land blockade of the coastal strip, bowing to international pressures over a deadly Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May 2010. Israel, however, still continues with its naval blockade and insists that it will continue to ban or restrict shipments of materials that could have military uses.
Israel and the West consider Hamas a terrorist organization due to its refusal to give up violence and recognize Israel. The Jewish nation refuses to engage in negotiations with Hamas, and prefer to channel their aid to Palestinians through the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank.
Incidentally, Hamas was not involved in the direct peace negotiations that resumed in Washington in September 2010 between Israeli and Palestinian Authority leaders after a two-year gap. The U.S.-brokered peace talks are presently deadlocked over Israel's refusal to extend a construction freeze in the West Bank after its expiry.
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