Sunday, May 23, 2004

In 5th Day of Gaza Raid, a Girl, 3, Is Shot Dead:
"As one of Israel's most powerful incursions into the Gaza Strip entered a fifth day, Palestinian officials said a 3-year-old girl was shot dead in the Rafah refugee camp on Saturday as thousands more people remained holed up in their homes, saying they were short of water, food and even battery power for their cellphones.

Israeli forces slowed their offensive on Friday, thinning out some troops but redeploying and rotating others so that two areas of the vast Rafah refugee camp on the border with Egypt remained difficult to enter or leave, witnesses said, with tanks deployed around parts of the Brazil and Tel Sultan neighborhoods.

An Israeli general said the apparent pause was designed to 're-energize' the troops, who went into Rafah after the killing of Israeli soldiers in Gaza last week.…"

Israel says the strike in Gaza is designed to close off arms smuggling routes through tunnels from Egypt and to strike a blow at armed Palestinian militants in the area - a focus of fierce resistance to Israeli occupation. But the attack seemed to lose some momentum on Wednesday when, according to the Israeli Army, tanks fired four rounds to deter civilian protesters and killed eight of them. The killings provoked a huge international outcry.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops in Rafah located a smugglers' tunnel in the camp on Saturday - the first confirmed discovery since the incursion began. The tunnel was said to be 25 feet deep and contained explosives. The spokeswoman said it was the 12th tunnel discovered this year out of more than 90 located since the latest Palestinian uprising began in 2000.

In the latest fatality, Palestinian health workers and witnesses said, Rawan Abu Zeid, 3, was killed when she was hit in the head and neck by two bullets when she left her home in the Brazil area of Rafah to go to a nearby shop with some older children to buy candy.

The Israeli Army said it was checking the report. Over 40 Palestinians have died since the incursion began. According to Reuters, reporters on a tour of the area on Saturday with Peter Hansen, chief of the United Nations agency for refugees in the region, heard gunshots before the girl was killed. Mr. Hansen was quoted as saying: "We have now confirmation from the hospital that a girl was shot and killed in one of the two gun bursts we heard."

"There are 25,000 people under closure," said Sahid Zughrub, the mayor of Rafah, speaking of people in the Tel Sultan area. "They need medicine, clean water. Yesterday the Israelis allowed us to get some food and water in but it was not enough." Others said Israeli soldiers had permitted some stores to open briefly but they soon ran out of goods to sell.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/international/middleeast/23gaza.html

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