Libyan rebels advancing towards Sirte, the hometown of Moamer Kadhafi, were blocked Wednesday in the town of Bin Jawad as loyalists kept a stiff resistance, an insurgent commander said.

After taking Ras Lanuf, 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Sirte, the rebels had advanced up to Bin Jawad, but were stuck there as they came under heavy artillery, rebel commander Fawzi Bukatif told AFP.

“Kadhafi’s forces are still fighting, we are surprised. We thought they would surrender with the fall of Tripoli,” Bukatif said in the nearby coastal town of Zuwaytina which also houses an oil exporting port.

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Al Arabiya was the first Arab TV channel to enter the Tripoli International Airport on Thursday after being controlled by the Libyan rebels.

A rebel commander told Al Arabiya correspondent at the airport Khalil Weld Jdoud that Qaddafi forces had bombed planes at the airport.

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A group of rebels besieging a cluster of apartment buildings near the compound of Muammar Gaddafi said they believed the man who led Libya for four decades was hiding in the buildings with some of his sons.

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Israeli air strikes have killed five people in Gaza, while a barrage of rockets fired by Palestinian militants into Israel has wounded a baby.

Two Islamic Jihad leaders died and three civilians, one of them a tunnel smuggler, Palestinian medics said.

Meanwhile, Gaza militants have fired 19 rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel since Wednesday, the army said.

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Libyan rebels fought a fierce battle with Muammar Gaddafi’s top military commander at his farm in Tripoli on Wednesday, a rebel spokesman said in comments broadcast on Al Arabiya TV.

Abdel Salam Abu Zaakouk said that heavy fighting was under way in a farm belonging to the chief of staff of the Libyan armed forces, Abdul Rahman Al Sayd.

“He (Sayd) is leading the battle with the rebels and he is still inside the farm,” Abu Zaakouk told the Dubai-based channel without giving further details.

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More than 400 people have been killed in the Battle for Tripoli as Libyan rebels have stormed the capital against dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in the past 48 hours, according to estimates.

In addition, more than 2 000 people are estimated to have been injured in the fighting in the Libyan capital, the Al-Arabiya TV reported early Wednesday morning,

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Libyan rebels celebrate after entering Bab al-Aziziya compound downtown Tripoli

Rebel fighters captured Muammar Qaddafi’s heavily defended Bab al-Aziziya compound and headquarters in Tripoli on Tuesday after a day of heavy fighting, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

Gunfire and explosions were heard from the presidential headquarters in Bab al-Aziziya after the rebels broke into the heavily fortified compound and raised their flag there, Al Arabiya reported.

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