No casualties were reported and the ministry building was empty at the time of the airstrike, said the witnesses, adding that the building was set on fire and sustained severe damages.

The Interior Ministry is headed by senior Hamas member Saeed Siam.

Meanwhile, Israeli military planes fired another two missiles at an office in downtown Gaza City, which belonged to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, said Palestinian witnesses.

Some damages were caused to the building but there was no report of any casualties, the witnesses added.

The Israeli army has confirmed the two strikes.

In addition, Palestinian security sources said that two other missiles hit an area near the only power plant in the Gaza Strip,which was located south of Gaza City, causing no casualties.

The power plant was destroyed in an Israeli air raid on early Wednesday, leading to a blackout in most areas of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army on Thursday pressed ahead a broad ground operation into the Gaza Strip in a bid to rescue an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinian militants on Sunday.

The operation, launched on early Wednesday, is the first of its kind since Israel withdrew troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip nearly a year ago after 38 years of occupation.

PCHR's preliminary investigation indicates that in the early morning hours of Thursday, 29 June 2006, IOF conducted a number of incursions throughout the West Bank, excluding Jericho however. IOF surrounded the places of residence of a number of Palestinian Cabinet Ministers and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) from the Change and Reform Party. These forces detained nine cabinet ministers, twenty-one PLC members and a number of Hamas political leaders.

The detained Cabinet Ministers are:
# Naser El-Deen El-Sha'er, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education
# Omar Abdel Raziq, Minister of Finance;
# Samir Abu Eisha, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation;
# Khaled Abu Arafa, Minister of Jerusalem Affairs;
# Wasfi Qabha, Minister of Prisoners' Affairs;
# Issa El-Ja'bari, Minister of Local Government;
# Fakhri Torokman, Minister of Social Affairs;
# Nayef El-Rajoub, Minister of Waqf and Religious Affairs; and
# Mohammad El-Barghouthi, Minister of Labor.

The detained PLC members are:
# Hebron: Basem Ahmad Moussa Za'arir, Khalil Moussa Khalil Beb'ei, Samir Saleh Ibrahim El-Qadi, Mohammad Ismail Othman El-Tal, Mohammad Motlaq Abdel Mahdi abu J'heisha, and Mohammad Maher Yousef Bader.
# Bethlehem: Anwar Mohammad Abdel Rahman El-Zoboun and Mahmoud Dawood Mahmoud El-Khatib.
# Jerusalem: Wa'el Mohammad Abdel Fattah Abdel Rahman (El-Husseini), Mohammad Mahmoud Abu Tir, and Ahmad Mohammad Ahmad Attoun.
# Nablus: Hosni Mohammad Ahmad Bourini, Reyad Ali Mostafa Amli, and Yser Suliman Dawoud Mansour. IOF raided the house of PLC member Ahmad Ali Ahmad in Ein El-Ma' refugee camp, but did not find him there.
# Jenin: Ibrahim Mohammad Saleh Dahbour, Khalek Suliman Fayez Abu Hasan, and Khaled (Sa'id) Abed Abdallah Yehya.
# Tulkarm: Reyad Mahmoud Sa'id Radad and Fathi Mohammad Ali Qarawi.
# Qalqilya: Imad Mahmoud Rajeh Nofal
# Salfit: Naser Abdallah Odeh Abdel Jawwad.

PCHR condemns these detentions, which came following the Israeli government's threat to assassinate and detain Hamas political leaders, after the military operation against the Israeli military outpost in Kerem Shalom on Sunday, 25 June 2006. PCHR:
# Affirms that these detentions are a form of reprisal and collective punishment;
# Affirms that these detentions are part of a plan to undermine the democratically elected government and PLC;
# Reiterates the position that Israel is intent on implementing unilateral steps to complete the construction of the Annexation Wall and confiscate more than half the area of the West Bank. Targeting the new Palestinian government underlines the intention of Israel to continue to disregard and undermine the Palestinian leadership;
# Reiterates the call to the International Community to take immediate steps to provide protection to the civilian population, in accordance with International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law, and to work to prevent further deterioration in the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.


The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is an independent legal body based in Gaza City dedicated to protecting human rights, promoting the rule of law and upholding democratic principles in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It holds Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations and is an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists, the Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH), and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network. PCHR is a recipient of the 1996 French Republic Award for Human Rights.

Haniyeh said the military offensive was not only about rescuing the soldier, but also crippling Hamas, which has refused to renounce violence since being swept to power in January parliamentary elections.

Meanwhile, Israel's air force struck more than 30 targets in Gaza over 24 hours, hitting roads, bridges and power plants. The army also fired hundreds of artillery shells in the offensive to force Hamas-linked militants to release Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19. He was captured Sunday when Gaza militants tunneled under the border, attacking an Israeli outpost and killing two other soldiers.

While thousands of troops massed along both sides of the Israel-Gaza border waiting for the go-ahead for an invasion, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said militants had agreed to Shalit's conditional release, but that Israel had not accepted the terms. Mubarak did not specify the terms.

Israeli officials said they did not know of such an offer. But a senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the secrecy of the diplomacy, said a planned ground offensive had been delayed due to a request by Egypt that mediators be given a chance to resolve the crisis.

Other officials, however, denied the delay was due to Egypt, saying it reflected Israel's overall management of the crisis, which they said required withholding force when necessary.

"The prime minister is managing the campaign while seeing all the balances, including the diplomatic one,'' said Tzahi Hanegbi, head of the Israeli parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee. "He needs to see the big picture, and the big picture is that there is a meaning to sometimes waiting a half a day, or a day. You need to exhaust all options.''

The pre-dawn missile attack on the Interior Ministry scored a direct hit on Interior Minister Said Siyam's fourth floor office, which went up in flames. The ground floor office of Siyam's bodyguard was also destroyed, while the first, second and third floors of the buildings - where passports and ID cards are printed - were not damaged. Nobody was hurt.

In a separate airstrike, three Israeli missiles hit the office of hard-line Interior Ministry official Khaled Abu Ilal, who heads a pro-Hamas militia.

The army said it also attacked a cell that attempted to fire an anti-tank missile at Israeli forces in southern Gaza. Mohammed Abdel Al, 25, a local leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group, died early Friday of wounds he suffered in the strike. His death was the first in Israel's three-day-old offensive.

In a gunbattle in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, three Fatah-affiliated gunmen were wounded in what they said was a fight against undercover Israeli forces. Israel denied it had any ground forces in the area.

Israeli ground troops have entered southern Gaza but have not yet penetrated the north.

The Interior Ministry is nominally in charge of the Palestinian security forces, but President Mahmoud Abbas has stripped it of much of its authority in a power struggle with Hamas. The Israeli military said it targeted the ministry because it was "a meeting place to plan and direct terror activity.''

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz called for leaders with influence over the Hamas government to pressure them to release Shalit.

"The quicker this is done the better it will be. If the soldier will be returned and the Qassam fire will be halted we will also return our soldiers to their bases,'' Peretz was quoted as saying in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot on Friday. He was referring to rockets militants have fired at Israel from Gaza.

Palestinian Foreign Ministry spokesman Taher al-Nunu said the Palestinian government was still seeking a "diplomatic solution to end the crisis.''

There has been no word on Shalit's condition since his abduction. The Popular Resistance Committees, one of the groups holding him, insisted Thursday on swapping him for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, but Israel rejected that demand.

Palestinian police and members of the Hamas militia guarding the Foreign Ministry fled after the attack on the nearby Interior Ministry, fearing their building would be next, witnesses said. The office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Abbas' house are less than half a mile from the Interior Ministry.

Haniyeh and nearly all the members his Hamas-led Cabinet have not been seen since Shalit's kidnapping, fearing they could be killed or arrested. Israel arrested 64 Hamas officials in the West Bank on Thursday, including eight Cabinet members.

In an unprecedented punishment Friday, the Israeli interior ministry also revoked the Jerusalem residency rights of four senior Hamas officials, officials said. The measure takes away their right to live in the holy city and travel within Israel freely.

Decoy convoys have been sent out ahead of any trips by Haniyeh, Siyam and Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, who apparently fear Israel's air force will target and kill them as it did Hamas leaders Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi in 2004.

About 2,500 people attended a Hamas rally in Gaza City on Thursday evening, denouncing Israel and calling for more abductions.

Palestinian militants launched homemade rockets Thursday night, and four landed inside Israel, causing no damage or injuries, the army said. Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group affiliated with Abbas' Fatah, claimed responsibility.

Last night Israel also hit a power station which supplies 65% of Gaza's electricity and also the water pumping station.

William Bell, Christian Aid's senior policy officer responsible for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said: 'Christian Aid partners in Gaza are telling us how people are rushing to buy dwindling supplies of bottled water, that tomorrow there will be very little bread available in Gaza as the ovens will not be working and that stocks of petrol and gas remain scarce.

'The message to the civilian population of Gaza could not be clearer - collective punishment is part of Israel's military strategy.

'This is in addition to the internal security chaos that exists in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the lack of Palestinian Authority control.

'Israel, in the name of security, has imposed lengthy closures on the strip which has frustrated any meaningful commercial activity and caused regular shortages of essential supplies.'

Mr Bell said Christian Aid implored the international community to recognise that 'we are facing a humanitarian crisis that is deteriorating at an alarming pace and to respond accordingly.

'Since the election of Hamas in January this year, international aid from the EU and US governments has been suspended. Therefore, the beleaguered population cannot rely on their government to provide essential humanitarian assistance,' he said

'By the weekend it is estimated that water will be in dangerously short supply and that essential foods will be unavailable. After only 24 hours of a military invasion and siege on a civilian population the humanitarian impact is looking perilous.'


Christian Aid is an agency of the churches of the UK and Ireland committed to anti-poverty work. Formed in 1945, Christian Aid today works with church partners, the ecumenical family and sister agencies as well as with alliances of other faiths and secular groups in order to end poverty.

Sameh Hassan, a witness who could see the power station from his home, said: "After the initial bombing of the station, Palestinian firefighters managed to put out the blaze.

"Then the station was struck again.

"Every time they found the firemen had put out the fire, they repeated their bombing runs," Hassan said.

Israeli warplanes targeted sites in Gaza as a show of force ahead of its incursion into the Gaza Strip to retrieve an Israeli soldier captured at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza on Sunday.

Medical needs

But the loss of electric power means many Palestinians will be unable to access medical care dependent on an energy source.

Khalid Radi, the spokesman of the ministry of health, told Aljazeera.net: "Al-Shifaa hospital, the main and largest hospital in the Gaza Strip and many clinics in the Strip are now without power which will result in a shortage of generated oxygen.

"In addition, the loss of power will also adversely affect kidney patients whose dialysis and other equipment run on electricity only."

Palestinian doctors will be unable to perform critical surgery and other operations.


Huda Saady, a kidney patient at Al-Shifaa told Aljazeera.net: "I wash my kidney two times a week. I can't skip one week without washing according to the doctors' prescription."

Collective punishment

Raji al-Sorani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, says the targeting of the power station is tantamount to collective punishment for all who live in Gaza.

"It is a violation of the first, second and third articles of the Geneva Conventions. However, targeting the infrastructure isn't a way to free the Israeli soldier, but to topple the Hamas government."

Other rights activists say that power loss will likely lead to the spoiling of foods in refrigerated warehouses and in civilian homes, particularly as temperatures continue to rise in the summer months.

Restoring power is expected to take six months. The power cut is also affecting water supplies which use electricity to pump water.

Khalil Abu-Shamaleh, director of Al-Dameer Human Rights Centre, said in a news conference in Gaza on Thursday: "Targeting the infrastructure is habitual for the Israelis.

"The concept of security in the Israeli mind has been known since the beginning of the occupation until these days; uprooting trees, demolishing homes and destroying infrastructure under the pretext of keeping security."

They, however, denied that withdrawing the residencies of the Hamas officials was related to an ongoing operation to rescue an Israeli soldier snatched by Palestinian militants on Sunday.

The decision had nothing to do with Israel's efforts to increase pressure on Hamas in order to secure the release of the abducted Gilad Shalit, said an Interior Ministry spokeswoman.

On May 29, Israel gave the four officials 30 days to quit the group or resign their seats, warning them to face expulsion from east Jerusalem if they failed to meet the conditions.The four facing expulsion are Jerusalem affairs minister Khaled Abu Arafeh and lawmakers Mohammed Abu Teir, Ahmed Attun and Mohammed Totah.

At least one of the lawmakers was among dozens arrested in a swift raid carried out by Israel forces in the West Bank on Thursday, according to the official sources.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in a newspaper interview that Palestinian militants have agreed to a conditional release of that captured Israeli soldier. But there's no reaction yet from Israel.

Israeli land forces are massed along the border with northern Gaza. There is no word on the fate of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was seized by militants who tunnelled into Israeli territory from Gaza on Sunday.

Earlier Thursday, eight Palestinian cabinet ministers and 56 other officials of Hamas were rounded up by Israeli soldiers who crossed into the Gaza in the southern sector.

An Israeli army spokesperson said that the officials were not being used as bargaining chips but were taken to await charges in connection with recent attacks against Israel.

In another development, Israeli troops confirmed they had found the body of settler Eliahu Asheri near Ramallah. Military sources told the Agence France-Presse news agency that he had been killed with a bullet to the head and then buried.

Asheri had been missing since Sunday. The Palestinian Resistance Committees later presented identification they said belonged to the 18-year-old and threatened to kill him if Israel continued to attack targets in Gaza.

Israeli air strikes have destroyed bridges to cut Gaza into sections, making it harder for militants to move the captured soldier around. A power station was hit and the Israelis say there is more to come.

The Palestinian militants have demanded the release of women and youths under 18 currently held by Israel in exchange for Shalit, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has repeatedly said Israel won't negotiate.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned the arrest of the Hamas members on Thursday, repeating the country's stance since the abduction of Shalit - who also holds French citizenship - that diplomacy is a better option.

There have been no deaths or injuries reported in the Israeli air strikes and ground incursion this week, but there is concern the loss of power and damaged water pipes in parts of Gaza will further depress the region, which is already suffering economically.

The UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, Alvaro De Soto said there was an "emergency" in Gaza and called on Israel to allow crucial supplies through its military lines.

In Damascus, Syria condemned an incursion by at least two Israeli war planes into its airspace on Wednesday. The jets flew over the summer residence of President Bashar al-Assad.

Israel accuses Syria of support for the leadership of Hamas.

Mark Regev, the Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said the arrests were "due to the fact that Hamas over the last few weeks has escalated terror attacks against Israel".

Jacob Dalal, an army spokesman, said: "They are not being used as bargaining chips. These are people with terrorist records, with allegations and charges pending against them."

An army spokeswoman said the ministers would be investigated, brought before a judge, their detention extended and charge sheets prepared.

During raids in Ram Allah and Jerusalem early on Thursday, at least eight Hamas cabinet ministers were detained.

Israeli troops detained five of the ministers at the same Ram Allah hotel, Aljazeera reported.

Some were led away blindfolded and in handcuffs, Palestinian security sources said.

Palestinian officials said Umar Abd al-Raziq, the Palestinian finance minister, and at least seven other cabinet members, along with nearly 20 Hamas legislators in operations across the West Bank were detained.

Israel said 64 Hamas officials in all were taken into custody during the West Bank operation.

In a sign of worsening relations between Israelis and Palestinians, a planned summit between Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has been cancelled.

Abbas condemned the arrests of the Hamas politicians and called on Western powers to intervene to "restore democracy".

Leaflet drop

The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) group, which claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit during a raid on an Israeli army post, said: "Olmert and [defence minister] Amir Peretz will be entirely responsible for the life of the kidnapped soldier if the aggression continues."

Palestinians lined up at public water fountains to fill up jugs after a second night of power cuts, under Israeli military pressure that has sparked fears of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

"When the Israelis come, maybe we'll be stuck in our homes for God knows how long," says Isra Abu Anza, a 16-year-old girl standing in a queue at one of the fountains.

"We need to drink, to wash, to bathe."

An Israeli missile destroyed a crucial power station late on Tuesday. In Rafah, which relied on the destroyed power plant for half of its daily energy needs, residents are now left without power for much of the day.

The Israeli military continued to prepare for a ground assault on parts of Gaza.

In preparation for the offensive, Israel dropped leaflets on northern Gaza urging residents to avoid areas troops may single out for attack.

Israeli aircraft fired missiles at the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, with the military saying it aimed at open areas, and Palestinian medical officials saying a car was hit.