Fares Al-Ashy, the director of the police force's explosives and engineering corps, said that some of the explosive devices confiscated in the raid were identical to the shrapnel extracted from bodies of the victims of the Gaza beach bombing last week.

He told a press conference that a big quantity of weapons of local and foreign make were found in addition to Israeli made explosives, which were found in tunnels and basements that were used as workshops to manufacture explosive devices.

Ashy said that mortar shells were also found, and pointed out that one of his sappers died while trying to dismantle one of the many explosive devices planted by those outlaws inside homes, in roads and on doors.

For his part, Islam Shahwan, the Gaza police spokesman, said that the raid was made after efforts to secure the arrest of wanted persons through negotiations with the Hillis family failed.

Abdul Baset Al-Masri, the general homicide department director, said that around 200 people were rounded up and that 40 of them were released so far after interrogating them.

He held the Hillis family fully responsible for the events and the fall of casualties because it refused to surrender the wanted suspects.

He underlined that suspects in the beach bombing were captured.

Meanwhile, the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas Movement, said in a statement on Sunday that events in Shujaia were an accomplishment for the Palestinian police and security.

It explained that the raided areas always constituted a safe haven for "gangsters who exhausted our people for long years even before general elections that brought Hamas to power".

Imposing law and order does not differentiate between one family and another or one faction and another, the armed wing asserted, adding that all should be equal before the law.

HEYET Net- PIC