RAFAH, Gaza Strip – Under heavy cover fire from helicopters, Israeli troops combed the Rafah refugee camp for weapons and gunmen Tuesday in the biggest Gaza offensive in years. Twenty Palestinians were killed, including two teenagers shot as they gathered laundry.
International condemnation mounted of 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.
In Rafah, a crowded camp of 90,000 people near the Egyptian border, Palestinian families sought refuge from the rocket and machine-gun fire in the innermost rooms of their homes.
The death toll was the highest one-day total since 35 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank city of Ramallah on April 5, 2002.
Electrician Khaled Al-Assar, 38, said he sat with his wife and five children in one room of their house as gunfire rattled all around and a missile landed nearby, shattering windows.
“The kids were terrified, there was very loud boom, they started screaming and crying,” he said.
Not everyone stayed inside, and the consequences could be deadly. Ahmed Mughayer, 13, and his sister Asma, 16, were killed by Israeli fire when they ventured onto the roof of their three-story apartment building to bring in laundry, their father Mohammed said.
Mughayer said his wife had told Asma not to go out because of the shooting. “Asma said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,’” he said.
The Israeli army said the aim was to destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels and arrest Palestinian militants. It said it did not intend to demolish large numbers of Palestinian homes. Troops tore down four homes Tuesday, witnesses said.
Last week, Israel destroyed about 100 houses, leaving more than 1,000 Palestinians homeless.
Troops moved Tuesday into the Tel Sultan neighborhood on the outskirts of the Rafah camp. Bulldozers began tearing up a road to separate the neighborhood from the rest of the camp, and soldiers backed by about 70 armored vehicles conducted house-to-house searches, sometimes using bulldozers to knock down doors.
The army said most of the casualties were gunmen killed by missiles or machine-gun fire as they prepared to attack troops.
In all, 19 Palestinians in Rafah were killed by Israeli fire – 10 in two missile strikes, and nine by machine-gun fire, said Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a Palestinian Health Ministry official. A 20th man was killed while handling explosives. At least 42 Palestinians were wounded.
Palestinian ambulance drivers reported coming under fire, and Hassanain said several ambulances were unable to evacuate the wounded.
The army denied soldiers fired at ambulances, and said it was allowing some ambulances to drive to Khan Younis, which has a better-equipped hospital than Rafah, along an otherwise closed road.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat denounced the operation 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,” a visibly angry Arafat told reporters at his West Bank compound.
In other violence Tuesday, two Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire in the West Bank, one in Nablus and one near Jenin.
A Palestinian wounded in fighting in the northern Gaza Strip last month died of his injuries Tuesday in a Gaza hospital, Palestinian medical officials said.
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