Two mosque human shields killed in Gaza

MILITANTS holed up inside a Gaza mosque besieged by Israeli troops escaped yesterday after hundreds of women who streamed there to serve as human shields provided cover for their flight, the army said.

Israeli troops fired toward the crowd of women, killing two and wounding at least 10, hospital officials said.

Soldiers seized Beit Hanoun on Wednesday in their fiercest bid in months to halt Palestinian rocket fire on nearby Israeli communities.

Twenty-three Palestinians have been killed and 155 wounded since the offensive began, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Some 60 of the wounded were women, the ministry said.

Dozens of gunmen sought refuge in the mosque on Thursday. Most were thought to belong to the military wing of the ruling Hamas party. Israeli tanks surrounded the building, and the two sides exchanged fire during the night. Israeli soldiers tried to pressure the gunmen into surrendering by throwing stun grenades and knocking down an outer wall of the mosque.

With shooting persisting yesterday morning, Hamas radio broadcast a call to women to go to Beit Hanoun to shield the militants.

By mid-morning, some 200 veiled women protesters gathered near the mosque.

As the women first approached, shots were fired toward them, television footage showed. Nearly 60 shots were heard on the footage, but it was not clear in every case who fired.

Two women, both aged 40, were shot dead, and at least 10 others were wounded, hospital officials said.

The army said the gunmen in the mosque were able to take advantage of the demonstration to escape because there weren’t enough infantrymen to block the protesters from approaching the building, and troops didn’t want to shoot into the crowd. The army said troops spotted two militants hiding in the crowd of women and opened fire, hitting the two.