Israeli army kills 8 Palestinians
Reuters
Date: 12-17-04
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - The Israeli army has raided south Gaza in response to increasing Palestinian mortar attacks, killing at least eight Palestinians and prompting hundreds to flee their homes, witnesses and medics say.
At least five other Palestinians were trapped in an arms-smuggling tunnel that collapsed as it was being dug under an army-controlled security strip between the Gaza town of Rafah and nearby Egypt, witnesses from Rafah said. Palestinian ambulances and rescue crews given clearance by Israeli forces rushed to the scene. Palestinian medics said they had "established communication" with the trapped men but still could not reach them.
Israeli troops have raided Rafah many times to battle militants waging a four-year-old revolt, killing hundreds of Palestinians and leaving thousands homeless from demolitions of homes suspected of hiding tunnels.
At least eight Palestinians were killed and 30 wounded in Friday's army raid into Khan Younis, Gaza's second largest city and a hotbed of militants who frequently pepper nearby Jewish settlements with mortar and rocket fire. Two Palestinians were killed by an Israeli missile strike. Six of the Palestinians killed on Friday were militants and at two were civilian bystanders, local medics and witnesses said.
NEW CHANCE FOR PEACE?
The incursion unfolded hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told a high-profile security conference that there was a unique chance for Middle East peacemaking with new Palestinian leaders following the death of Yasser Arafat.
Sharon said he was ready to coordinate a planned pullout from Gaza with a moderate post-Arafat leader, likely to be Mahmoud Abbas. He is favoured to win a January 9 presidential election and advocates a halt to violence and fresh talks.
About 600 people, many carrying small children in freezing pre-dawn darkness, fled homes in neighbourhoods bearing the brunt of the raid and were given shelter in a U.N.-run school.
They said a number of homes were demolished.
"What peace and what pullout? We only feel fear and cold. I do not know even if my house was still standing or if it was demolished," Kamilia Attobji, 36, a mother of 10, told Reuters.
Israeli forces say buildings they raze in such raids are used as cover for militants targeting settlements. Residents uprooted by demolitions complain of collective punishment.
An Israeli army commander in the Khan Younis area told Reuters that the raid would continue as long as was required.
"We will carry on and I can say we will do all we can to reduce the threat to the local communities who should not have to live like this," Lieutenant Colonel Dotan, who declined to give his surname, said in reference to mortar barrages.
The incursion was only the second serious army sweep into Palestinian territory since a short period of calm following Arafat's death on November 11.
Rocket and mortar fire by militants has since restarted with some 30 attacks this month. A Thai farm labourer was killed and 17 settlers wounded in one attack.
Source
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