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Lebell · 05-19-2004, 10:14 AM

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10 Dead, 50 Hurt in Gaza Strip Explosion

Wednesday May 19, 2004 2:31 PM

By KEVIN FRAYER

Associated Press Writer

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) - A large explosion ripped through a crowd of Palestinians demonstrating Wednesday against an Israeli invasion of a neighboring refugee camp, killing at least 10 people, most of them children, and wounding at least 50, Palestinian witnesses and medical workers said.

The Palestinians said Israeli forces fired tank shells, helicopter missiles and machine guns at the crowd.

Associated Press Television News footage showed a large explosion going off in a crowd of demonstrators, followed by Palestinians carrying the wounded - including children and teenagers - from the smoky scene.

Military sources said on condition of anonymity that one helicopter missile and one tank shell had been fired. Defense sources said senior officers, including the chief of staff, were in an emergency meeting to investigate the incident.

``We are still checking the event. This is a combat zone filled with explosives devices and it is premature to know exactly what happened this afternoon in Rafah,'' army spokeswoman Maj. Sharon Feingold said.

The wounded were evacuated to the Rafah hospital by ambulance, private cars and donkey carts, witnesses said. The hospital stairs and floors were drenched in blood as doctors shouted for help and blood donations. Hospital staff treated the wounded on the floors after quickly running out of beds.

``We cannot handle the situation, no hospital in the world can handle the situation,'' said Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a senior official for the Palestinian Health Ministry.

``I got instruction from President (Yasser) Arafat to mobilize all our teams to Rafah immediately and declare a state of emergency all over Gaza Strip hospitals.''

Hassanain said at least 10 people were killed and at least 50 others wounded. He said the hospital had received numerous body parts and could not yet give an exact death toll.

Shabtai Gold, a spokesman for Physicians for Human Rights, said 12 ambulances from nearby Khan Younis traveled to Rafah to evacuate the wounded.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath told The Associated Press the attack was ``a terrorist massacre and a terrorist war crime.''

An estimated 3,000 people were demonstrating against the Israeli invasion of the nearby Tel Sultan neighborhood in Rafah refugee camp. Witnesses and Palestinian security sources said tanks opened fire with shells and machine guns and a helicopter fired four missiles.

The strike came as Israeli troops stormed homes in the Palestinian refugee camp 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 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. The victims included a 13-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister.

International condemnation mounted against the operation, and the United States was asking Israel for ``clarification,'' said Paul Patin, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.

President Bush has described the violence as ``troubling'' but said Israel had the right to defend itself from terrorism.

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, including 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 apparently were 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 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 shot and hit two armed men overnight in Rafah. Palestinian residents said one man was shot 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, Hassanain said. A 20th man was killed while handling explosives.

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.

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.