GAZA CITY, 10 March 2003 — Israeli troops yesterday killed 10 Palestinians, including a toddler and a 13-year-old boy, in raids on the Gaza Strip launched as Yasser Arafat failed to push through changes he demanded the Palestinian Parliament make to a key bill to appoint a power-sharing prime minister.
The deadly new raids came after an army bulldozer crushed to death a US peace activist trying to prevent almost daily house demolitions in Rafah, a town on the Israeli-controlled southern border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
The first raid of 30 armored vehicles backed up by helicopter gunships targeted the Nusseirat refugee camp just south of Gaza City, meeting stiff resistance from Palestinian fighters.
The slain toddler was identified as Elham El-Assar, aged three, killed by a bullet wound to the head. Two other people, including a member of Islamic Jihad, were crushed to death under the rubble of a house dynamited by the army.
The overnight raid also cost the lives of four other Palestinians, one of them aged 13, while 17 were wounded.
The latest violence came as the Palestinian Parliament met for a second time in a week in Ramallah, with reformists from Arafat’s own Fatah faction challenging their leader over changes he made to a bill defining the powers of a new prime minister.
The appointment is seen as a key change in reforming the Palestinian administration set up under the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath, considered close to Arafat, played down the failure to pass the changes.
