Palestinians: We thwarted car bomb
Three Palestinian security officers injured in exchanges of fire with Palestinians who sought to penetrate Karni crossing with car bomb
According to the report, three Palestinian security force members were wounded in the exchange of fire with the people who sought to enter the crossing in the vehicle.
Palestinian policemen near Karni crossing (Photo: AP)
The incident took place when the security forces, which belong to the Preventative Security Service, noticed a group of Palestinians seeking to smuggle a suspicious vehicle into the crossing.
It appears that the terrorists planned to carry out an explosion using the car bomb and then to enter the terminal and open fire on its workers. An attack of this kind took place at Karni a year and a half ago, in which six terminal workers were killed.
A short time later – apparently a coincidence – two soldiers from the multinational force and two Egyptian police officers in Egyptian Rafah were injured by two explosions outside of their bases. According to Egyptian news media, the explosions took place near the al-Jura airport, and soldiers from New Zealand and Norway were injured. In an additional incident near Ismailiya, a suicide bomber opened fire and threw devices at a local police station.
Karni: Attack prevented
Israel sources say five terrorists arrived in a vehicle near Karni, before a fire exchange between then and Palestinian police officers took place. The vehicle contained weapons and could have been booby-trapped.
Palestinian security sources claim that there is a direct connection between the attack in Karni and Rafah. Palestinian security forces began investigating the two incidents, despite the fact that the second terror attack took place on Egyptian territory. A Palestinian source said that the PA was not ruling out the possibility that an extremist terrorist organization – one of al-Qaeda's offspring – is responsible for the two incidents. The source said that Palestinian security forces are continuing to scan the Karni area after the occupants of the vehicle, who escaped.
Shots exchanged
The security forces ordered the vehicle's occupants to stop and when they refused, shots were fired at the car. An exchange of fire developed between the two sides, causing two Palestinian security officers to be injured.
After the incident the terminal was closed and its workers were evacuated. Security sources say that the terminal was open on Wednesday morning as normal for goods to enter Gaza, after many recent warnings of terror attacks in the area.
The Palestinians say that in recent days the Karni crossing has returned to normal after intervention by international sources and an agreement by Israel to reopen it despite the many alerts, after the PA claimed that the closing of the crossing caused a starvation of Gaza residents and severe shortages of food money, and various products.
Hanan Greenberg contributed to this report
