BREAKING NEWS: Israelis Fire on Gaza Demonstration; 8 Dead
3,000 Protest Rafah Invasion
By Kevni Frayer
Associated Press
Wednesday, May 19, 2004; 7:40 AM
washingtonpost.com
RAFAH, Gaza Strip -- Israeli forces fired on a large crowd of Palestinians demonstrating against an Israeli invasion of a neighboring refugee camp, killing at least eight people, including two children, and wounding 35 others, Palestinian medical workers said.
Israeli tanks and helicopters were in the area at the time. Witnesses and Palestinian security sources said tanks opened fire with shells and machine guns and a helicopter fired four missiles. Wounded were evacuated by ambulance, private cars and donkey carts to the nearby hospital.
An estimated 3,000 people were participating in the demonstration against the Israeli invasion of the nearby Tel Sultan neighborhood in Rafah refugee camp.
The army had no immediate comment.
The strike came as Israeli troops stormed homes in this Palestinian refugee camp on Wednesday in an ongoing search for militants and illegal weapons, confining tens of thousands of residents to houses without electricity or water.
The invasion, launched Tuesday, knocked out power in the Rafah refugee camp, home to an estimated 90,000 people, local Palestinian officials said. By Wednesday, they said, water service had been halted as well.
Twenty Palestinians -- the highest single-day death toll in more than two years -- were killed on the first day of the army's "Operation Rainbow" offensive. Among the dead were a 13-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister.
International condemnation mounted against the operation, and the United States said it was asking Israel for "clarification." The United Nations and European Union demanded an end to the incursion, which Israeli security officials said would last at least a week.
The massive invasion -- the largest in the Gaza Strip in years -- came less than a week after Palestinian militants killed 13 soldiers -- seven in the Rafah area.
Israel said it was targeting armed militants, but Palestinians said many of Tuesday's casualties were civilians.
Palestinians said the teenage brother and sister were killed by an Israeli sniper as they gathered laundry from their rooftop.
But the military said an initial investigation found no Israeli soldiers had fired in that area at the time of the shootings. The military said the two had apparently been killed by a Palestinian bomb aimed at troops.
Early Wednesday, the army said it demolished the home of Ibrahim Ahmed, an Islamic Jihad militant it said was responsible for a shooting attack earlier this month that killed a pregnant Israeli woman and her four daughters near a Gaza settlement. Palestinian witnesses said at least three homes were demolished overnight.
Ali Bayomi, a 55-year-old resident of Rafah, said soldiers disguised as Hamas militants had arrested two of his cousins and were using the men as human shields as they conducted searches of homes. The army did not comment.
Salwa Abu Jazar, a 33-year-old mother of four, said the noise from combat helicopters and shooting kept her family up much of the night.
"There is no water, no electricity, and it is very hard to move inside the house using candles because snipers in the building next door will shoot you," Abu Jazar said.
The army said it had shot and hit two armed men overnight in Rafah. Palestinian residents said one man had been hit in the head and stomach, the other in the leg. They said the intense fighting was making it hard for ambulances to evacuate the dead and wounded.
The facades of Rafah buildings were riddled with holes from Israeli machine guns. Residents said the rocket and gun fire had confined them to the innermost rooms of their homes.
Saleem Katib, 25, said his ailing, elderly father went to morning prayers early Tuesday and still had not returned. Trapped by the fighting and the military curfew, the man was holed up near the mosque with other worshippers, his son said.
"How can you believe that a man can't reach his home when he is only 20 meters away?" Katib said.
In all, 19 Palestinians were killed Tuesday by Israeli fire -- 10 in two separate missile strikes and nine by machine gun fire, said Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a senior official for the Palestinian Health Ministry. A 20th man was killed while handling explosives.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat denounced the incursion as a "planned massacre."
"What is happening in Rafah is an operation to destroy and to transfer the local Palestinian population, and this must not be accepted, not by the Palestinians, nor the Arabs, nor by the international community," an angry Arafat told reporters at his West Bank compound.
Israel's Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a petition by 46 Rafah residents against demolition of their homes, giving the army the right to tear down buildings that could be used for attacking troops.
Troops demolished four houses Tuesday, witnesses said. The Israeli army chief, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, said homes would be destroyed only if gunmen used them as firing positions or to cover up tunnels.
"Our plan is not to demolish houses," he said, backing away from a plan to knock down rows of houses, hundreds in all, to widen the border buffer zone -- apparently giving in to mounting diplomatic pressure.
Paul Patin, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, said the United States had asked Israel for "clarification" regarding the Rafah operations.
President Bush described the violence as "troubling" but said Israel had the right to defend itself from terrorism.
Mohammed Dahlan, a former chief of Palestinian security in Gaza who is considered to have pro-Western views, said the United States had the power to stop the incursion -- but would not in an election year.
"I don't expect any serious move by the Americans to put an end to the ongoing aggression, because if the Americans want to end it, they can stop it by one statement, but they don't want to," Dahlan told a radio station in Gaza.
Also Wednesday, Israeli forces entered a refugee camp next to the West Bank town of Jenin, and killed a Palestinian militant who was a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a group linked to Arafat's Fatah movement.
Also, an Al Aqsa militant was killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Nablus early Wednesday. |
