Death And Destruction In Gaza
By Tamer Ziara
17 May, 2004
The GuardianRAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) - Palestinians fled homes in this refugee camp Monday, as Israeli tanks cut off the area from the rest of the Gaza Strip in preparation for what is expected to be a major Israeli military offensive.
Frantic Rafah residents loaded belongings onto trucks and donkey carts, and headed to the neighboring town of the same name - the only avenue of escape. Women balanced mattresses on their heads, children carried blankets.
The exodus began Sunday evening and continued Monday, with small groups of people making their way to the town of Rafah through back alleys. Municipal officials estimated that more than 2,000 camp residents had left their homes.
On Sunday, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the military could keep razing houses to protect soldiers' lives, and Israel's army chief said hundreds more homes in Rafah were marked for demolition.
Since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2000, Israel has demolished or damaged nearly 2,000 houses in Rafah, leaving more than 11,000 people homeless.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved the Gaza offensive, after 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza fighting last week. At the same time, Sharon says he is still pushing for an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Rafah is being targeted because it abuts a narrow Israeli buffer zone between Gaza and the Egyptian border. Palestinian militants have been digging tunnels under the road to smuggle weapons from Egypt into the camp.
Israeli security officials said they want to enlarge the patrol road, which is six miles long and up to 200 yards wide in some areas, to stop the smuggling. The officials said the plan is to expand the entire road to a width of 250 yards, which would require the demolition of many more homes.
Last week, five Israeli soldiers were killed on the patrol road, when their armored personnel carrier was hit by a home-made rocket from Rafah. Later, two soldiers were killed in the camp by sniper fire.
A senior Israeli government official said that the Palestinians, aided by Islamic militant groups abroad, are making a major push to smuggle weapons into Gaza. ``We have to take measures now to stop entire Gaza Strip from becoming major arsenal of rockets,'' the official said on condition of anonymity.
The official said Israel is trying to stop the flow of weapons ahead of an eventual withdrawal. He brushed aside U.S. criticism of house demolitions, saying the army has no choice and that the practice was sanctioned by Israel's Supreme Court.
On Sunday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington opposes the house demolitions. ``We don't think that is productive,'' he said. International human rights groups have said the practice amounts to collective punishment.
Yuval Dvir, an Israeli reserve colonel who oversaw the creation of the buffer zone in the 1980s, said Israel must leave Gaza now, and that the plan to widen the road was ``foolish'' and would not enhance Israeli security. ``We are following our guts and not our brains,'' he told Israel Army Radio.
Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat, speaking from Berlin after a meeting with U.S. Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, said Israel was committing a ``major crime'' against the Palestinians.
``Every time there is hope to revive the peace process or do something about breaking the cycle of violence, the Israeli government does something to undermine it,'' Erekat told The Associated Press.
In a first sign of the operation, a dozen tanks cut off Rafah early Monday. Witnesses said bulldozers began tearing up the road linking the camp with the rest of Gaza. Tanks fired machine guns to clear the area of cars.
In Rafah camp, home to more than 90,000 people, many residents were packing their belongings Monday, leaving to stay with relatives or find emergency shelter. Some 400 tents set up last week in schools and public squares were already filled.
Paul McCann, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said the agency has prepared emergency shelters in tents and schools for about 2,000 people.
Rafah Ibrahim Abu Taha, 29, said he moved with his wife and three children to the town of Rafah, leaving behind his new four-room house. During a brief Israeli raid last week, a tank shell landed in his garden, he said.
Said Keshta, 44, a taxi driver and father of eight, said he is staying. ``I told my family to leave, but I will stay,'' he said. ``I can't see my dreams blown up. I saved all my money to building this house.''
Anxiety was fueled by uncertainty. In previous raids, troops demolished homes closest to the buffer road, but there was some expectation that bulldozers would move deeper in the current operation, which security officials said would last for days and involve hundreds of soldiers and dozens of armored vehicles.
Gunmen said they were preparing for a tough fight. Abu Obeida, a local leader of the Islamic Jihad group, that ``we are waiting for them (the Israeli soldiers) ... and the camp will be a graveyard for their troops.''
Also Monday, helicopters fired five missiles into an office run by Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in Gaza City, witnesses said. No one was hurt. The military said the strike was aimed at ``focal points for terrorism.''
On Sunday evening, Israeli troops killed three Palestinians trying to plant a bomb on the border fence between Israel and Gaza. The military said soldiers fired at suspicious figures, and explosives they were carrying detonated, killing them.
In the West Bank, a 21-year-old Palestinian was killed in the village of Silwad when troops fired at stone throwers, the army said.
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