Palestinians check damage at the American International School in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, Saturday Jan. 12, 2008. Gunmen smashed windows, burned buses and looted computers belonging to the private American school in Gaza before dawn Saturday, an attack officials believed was linked to U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to the West Bank earlier this week.
(AP Photo/ Hatem Moussa)
“Al-Qaeda in Palestine Oragnization” in Gaza smashed windows, torched buses and stole computers at the American International School.
The Gulf Times reported:
Militants from a hitherto unknown group linked to Al Qaeda ransacked a private school in the northern Gaza Strip at dawn yesterday, its director said.
A statement signed by the “Army of Believers, Al Qaeda in Palestine Organisation” was left behind at the American International School after the attack during which five buses and a car were set ablaze, Rabhi Salem said.
“Armed men entered the school in Beit Lahiya during the night and ransacked rooms as well as adminstration offices, and stole several computers.”
The attacks comes as two members of the Hamas were killed in an Israeli air raid on the southern Gaza Strip yesterday, medics said.
They were killed by the explosion of a missile, apparently fired from a drone, in which four others people were wounded.
The raid on the school was the second in a week. On Wednesday armed men fired anti-tank rockets at it, causing serious damage to the building.
“Polytheists and enemies of Islam are pursuing each day their work to destroy our youths, who are falling by the dozens into the swamps of vice and moral decadence,” the statement found at the school said. “That is why we must re-establish the truth and warn everyone who might try to corrupt our youths or try to open such places of corruption,” the statement added in apparent reference to the American International School.
