Posted on 05/19/2004 10:16:36 AM PDT by freepatriot32
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli tanks and helicopters fired on protesters in a refugee camp on Wednesday, killing 10 Palestinians and raising a two-day death toll to 33 in Israel's bloodiest Gaza raid in years, witnesses said.
Medics said about 50 people were wounded at the besieged Rafah camp in southern Gaza and that the casualties included many children and teenagers.
The firing sent a marching crowd fleeing in terror, some dragging bloodied comrades and others carrying wounded children in their arms, demonstrators said.
Expressing "deep sorrow over the loss of civilian lives," the army said it did not fire deliberately at the procession but that tank fire designed to drive back the protesters may have caused casualties. It said gunmen were among the crowd.
"It was horrifying," said Mahmoud Abu Hashem, 35. "There was one person with his intestines coming out. Another had blood covering his face and you couldn't even make out his features."
The Palestinian Authority called it a "war crime" and demanded international protection for Palestinians.
In a rare but gently worded rebuff to its ally, Washington said it was "very concerned" about the number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza and had asked Israel to explain its actions.
The bloodshed seemed certain to bring renewed international pressure on Israel to end its assault, which began on Tuesday with the stated goal of rooting out militants and uncovering tunnels used to smuggle weapons across the border from Egypt.
BODIES PILE UP
Bodies carried on piling up in a flower freezer converted into a makeshift morgue after staff at the refugee camp's main hospital strained to cope with the dead along with dozens of wounded in two days of Israeli military assaults.
The firing began as marchers surged toward the Tel Sultan neighborhood, focal point of Israel's sweep into Rafah, to demand that humanitarian aid be allowed in.
Residents flooded the hospital to look for loved ones. "Did you see my brothers, the three of them who were in the rally?" cried one person. "Where is Ahmed?" a woman shouted.
Brigadier Ruth Yaron, Israel's chief military spokeswoman, told Army Radio: "The claim that this was a case of deliberate fire (at the crowd) is false and I reject it completely."
She said the army was investigating and it was too soon to say what happened. But an army statement said Palestinians had rigged the road used by the marchers with explosives against Israeli forces.
Palestinians said the incident evoked bitter memories of the army's 2002 assault on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, where forces flattened an entire neighborhood during pitched battles with militants following suicide bombings in Israel.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in Rafah and demanded the surrender of militants. Troops searched house to house amid clashes with gunmen.
An international outcry was sparked by Israeli threats to flatten hundreds of Rafah homes to widen an army-controlled security corridor along the border with Egypt.
Amid the bloodletting, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon worked to revive his Gaza withdrawal plan, which aides said may be presented for cabinet approval as early as next week.
Violence has worsened in Gaza since Sharon proposed evacuating troops and Jewish settlers in a plan backed by most Israelis and the United States, but rejected by his right-wing Likud party in a referendum earlier this month.
Palestinian militants want to claim as a victory any pullout by Israel from territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, but the army is determined to smash them first. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)
"The firing sent a marching crowd fleeing in terror" Arabs fleeing in terrror is a good thing. The IDF needs to be much less polite towards the paliwogs.
I can't wait for the terrorist corpses in Rafah to pile up. 10 dead is just a down payment.
"The firing sent a marching crowd fleeing in terror"
"How's it feel, a**holes?"
I love the Israelis.
YYYeeeesssss! Catch all those bottom-feeding islamic pigs in one place and bombed it. Israel is finally catching on to the game.
Gee maybe they can now relate to what the Israelis see when the Palis send in their homicide bombers
hey isnt that robert byrd (D) VI. in the middle ?
God bless the IDF, their tanks, gunships and bulldozers.
Wha is best in life? To smite the jihadists, to drive the leftists before you, and to hear the lamentations of their media!
mess with the bull and you will get the horn
And what do these goat humpers call suicide bombers ? The IDF should have called in 155mm on their sorry butts.
But these are the same "people" (I use the term with extreme generosity) who called the murder of Tali Hatuel, her four young daughters and her unborn fetus a "noble deed."
---"It was horrifying," said Mahmoud Abu Hashem, 35. "There was one person with his intestines coming out. Another had blood covering his face and you couldn't even make out his features."---
Much like one of the Palestinian suicide bus bombings, heh Mahmoud? Cry me a river.
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