1.240 left homeless by Israeli army strike
Israel’s three-day military operation in a Gaza Strip refugee camp left 1,240 Palestinians homeless, the largest demolition of houses in a Gaza raid in three years of fighting, UN officials said.
In the West Bank, Yasser Arafat appointed a senior official from the ruling Fatah party as acting security chief, a Palestinian official said.
The appointment of Hakam Balawi was a new blow to Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, who had supported another candidate.
Qureia has told Fatah he wants to quit once the term of his temporary government expires in about three weeks because of sharp disagreements with Arafat.
Israeli troops withdrew from the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border after a three-day operation aimed at finding and destroying weapons smuggling tunnels. Three tunnels were shut down.
The raid, the biggest in Gaza in six months, was accompanied by heavy fighting between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. Eight Palestinians, including two children, were killed, and dozens were wounded.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for refugees, initially said that about 1,500 Palestinians were left homeless in the raid, the largest-scale demolition of houses in a single operation in Gaza in the past three years of fighting.
After further checks, the agency revised the number to 1,240.
“ We have had very, very significant damage to the refugee camp,” Peter Hansen, the commissioner general of UNRWA, said after inspecting the damage. “Many houses, maybe as many as 120, have been completely demolished.”
UNRWA said 114 refugee shelters were destroyed in the raid. Another 117 buildings were damaged.
The area targeted was the camp’s Yabena neighbourhood, next to the Gaza-Egypt border. Several of the houses were blown up, while the remainder were razed by army bulldozers. It was the largest-scale demolition in a single raid since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting three years ago.
Palestinians charged that Israel was trying to bury peace efforts with the Rafah raid. “This is a classic war against the Palestinian people,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said Sunday.
