"They had lost any hope of getting work inside the Gaza Strip, There was no food for the children."

No Terror This Time, Just Five Arab Cousins Taking a Deadly Gamble for Work
The five cousins left their identification as Gaza Palestinians at home. They dressed in layers because of the winter wind, and because the clothes on their backs would be their only wardrobe during the weeks or months they planned to stay in Israel, working illegally.

After dark Wednesday, they took a ladder, guessed when the army patrols were looking elsewhere, and stole toward the Israeli fence that encloses the Gaza Strip.…

The cousins' mangled bodies were returned today to this struggling town in southern Gaza. The army said that soldiers, operating on intelligence that predicted a terrorist infiltration, opened fire with tanks when they detected shadowy figures crawling toward the fence.

When soldiers examined the bodies Thursday morning, they found two 13-foot ladders nearby but no weapons. Today the Israeli government conceded that the men might have been seeking to work in Israel.

"It's a strange incident, and if they were workers, an unhappy one," said Jacob Dallal, an army spokesman. "It's incredibly dangerous, what they did. There have been many attempts at that point to infiltrate by people who clearly wanted to carry out terror attacks."

The cousins, all Astal family members, were well aware of the risks, their relatives said. But two had pregnant wives, and others already had children. One was trying to pay off debts, including money owed for the meat served at his wedding two years ago. Another was one of only two breadwinners in a household of at least 30.

"They had lost any hope of getting work inside the Gaza Strip," said another cousin, Raed al-Astal. "There was no food for the children."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/14/international/middleeast/14MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=top