GAZA, 10 October — Two Palestinian boys were killed and dozens more wounded in Israeli tank fire in the Gaza Strip yesterday, just days after a raid in the Gaza Strip drew international condemnation.
While taking some steps to appease mounting criticism from US President George W. Bush, who is seeking calm on the Israeli-Palestinian front as he prepares for a possible war on Iraq, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon remained defiant.
In the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, tanks escorting bulldozers demolishing Palestinian houses along the Israeli-controlled border with Egypt opened fire and killed a Palestinian teenager, medical sources said. A crowd of angry stone-throwing children which gathered following the incident was targeted by another burst of heavy machine-gun fire from the tanks that killed a second boy, the sources said.
Some 30 youths were wounded in the incident, 10 of them seriously. The latest raid took place only two days after a deadly army raid into the nearby town of Khan Yunis killed 16 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and drew international condemnation.
Monday’s operation which included tanks, bulldozers and helicopters, met with severe reprobation from the White House, where Sharon is due to hold talks next week, and sparked Palestinian fears of a reoccupation of Gaza.
In more Gaza violence yesterday, Israeli fire ripped through a school in Khan Yunis, injuring eight Palestinians, including four schoolboys.
An Israeli, died of his gunshot wounds from a Palestinian attack Tuesday on a car near the West Bank town of Hebron that was claimed by Hamas in revenge for the Khan Yunis killings.
Despite the freeze in Israeli-Palestinian contacts and unabated violence on the ground, an upbeat EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in Cairo he was trying to revive the peace process. "We are going to continue working and try to see how to get the peace process in the Middle East started, and we have something going on in the coming weeks," Solana said after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
In a bid to appease international ire over its operations in the occupied territories, the Israeli Army moved to demolish unauthorized outposts built by Jewish settlers in the West Bank. At least two unoccupied outposts were dismantled near Nablus on the orders of Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, who reportedly plans to proceed with the demolition of up to 30 such sites, including some which are inhabited.
But the main Israeli anti-settlement group dismissed the move as a PR ploy. "Peace Now is not satisfied with the symbolic — and high profile — dismantling of a few uninhabited caravans," it said.
