Israeli Tanks Return to Refugee Camp

07/03/2003| IslamWeb

In the most intense battle in Gaza in months, an Israeli army raid left 11 Palestinians dead Thursday, including eight who witnesses said were hit by an Israeli tank shell fired at a crowd. Israel insisted it targeted only armed men. More than 140 Palestinians were hurt, 35 of them seriously, doctors said. The crackdown at the Jabaliya refugee camp - the largest and most heavily armed Palestinian shantytown - came a day after a Palestinian resistance bomber killed 14 Israelis and an American teenager on a bus in the Israeli port city of Haifa.

In the West Bank, four Palestinians - two resistance men, a 16-year-old boy and a 55-year-old woman cutting grass for her sheep - were killed by Israeli occupation troops.

The Second-Large Israeli Incursion in Gaza in as Many Days

After nightfall Thursday, witnesses said about 100 Israeli tanks and other military vehicles moved toward the Jabaliya camp again, signaling the second large-scale incursion in the area in as many days. The Israeli occupation army would say only that an operation was in progress

Israeli occupation army officials said on condition of anonymity that the incursion was only meant to thwart efforts to fire rockets into nearby Israeli areas - three had been set off earlier but caused no injuries - and was not a large operation.

But the troop movement caused panic in the area. "We are expecting a new bloody massacre, God help us," said the mayor of nearby Beit Lahiya, Mohammed Masri.

In raiding Jabaliya, occupation troops met fierce resistance from hundreds of Palestinian resistance men who fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at Israeli tanks and helicopters raking the streets with machine-gun fire. In anticipation of an incursion, resistance men had also planted explosives in the streets, detonating them by remote control as armored vehicles drove by.

The occupation army said several tanks were damaged in the fighting. "We were prepared," said a resistance man.

Karim Ziada, Target of Israeli Gaza Raid

The target of the raid was Abdel Karim Ziada, a Hamas resistance activist and weapons maker. Occupation Soldiers searching his family home found assault rifles, grenades, explosive devices and anti-tank missile launchers, the occupation army said. Occupation troops later blew up the house.

Israeli military commentators criticized the timing of the raid, saying world sympathy for Israel after the bus bombing was pushed aside by the many Palestinian casualties in Gaza.

In the early stage of the raid, sometime after midnight, two resistance men and a mosque guard were killed by Israeli fire. Close to 7 a.m., as Israeli troops were withdrawing, eight Palestinians - including three boys ages 12, 13 and 14 - were killed in disputed circumstances.

As word spread that the army was pulling out, Jabaliya residents rushed out despite calls from mosque loudspeakers to remain indoors. A large crowd gathered outside a furniture store that was on fire.

As firefighters tried to douse the burning building, another explosion was heard just up the alley.

In Bethlehem, a resistance activist the Palestinian Jihad group was killed in a gun battle that erupted as occupation soldiers came to arrest him at his home. An occupation army soldier was lightly hurt, the military said.

Mahmoud Abbas To Be Named Palestinian Premier

Also Thursday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told aides he will name his deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, as prime minister in a meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council next week, said the speaker of the council, Ahmed Qureia. Arafat has been under international pressure to institute political and financial reforms in the Palestinian Authority to get peace negotiations restarted.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian men carry the body of one of the men who were killed during clashes with Israeli occupation soldiers earlier in the day in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, Thursday, March 6, 2003. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo) - Mar 06 2:20