Israeli Troops Gaze Into Gaza

Troops Mass On Border After Numerous Rocket And Mortar Attacks

(CBS/AP)  Two Israelis were wounded seriously by a mortar that landed on a house in the Gaza settlement of Neve Dekalim, rescue officials said. It was the second house in the settlement to suffer such an attack in as many days.

Soon afterward, witnesses in Gaza City said the Israeli air force fired missiles at a car in northern Gaza on Sunday. Two men in the car escaped, but a bystander was seriously injured, the witnesses said. The Israeli military refused to comment.

An Israeli sniper also shot and killed a senior Hamas field commander in a targeted strike earlier in the day after another mortar round hit the same community, the army and Hamas officials said.

Troops shot and killed an armed Palestinian who tried to infiltrate another Gaza settlement and ignored orders to stop, the military said. Another infiltrator escaped, it added.

And an Israeli shell seriously wounded a 16-year-old Palestinian in the Khan Younis refugee camp, Palestinian rescue workers said. The military said troops fired on a group of men who were launching mortars.

Palestinian police, meanwhile, began removing Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah flags from the streets of Gaza early Sunday, leaving only the Palestinian national flag.

A Palestinian suicide bombing and a rocket attack last week killed a total of six Israelis. Palestinian militants have fired more than 100 projectiles at Israeli targets since Thursday, in one of the heaviest onslaughts since the two sides declared a now-moribund truce in February.

Also Sunday, Israeli police declared a mass march by settlers in the Gaza Strip planned for Monday would be Gaza illegal. Settler leaders plan to send tens of thousands of protesters to the region to try to foil the planned pullout from the territory next month. Last week Israel closed the Gaza Strip to nonresidents to prevent opponents of the pullout from camping out to interfere with the evacuation.