JERUSALEM, 4 August 2004 — Three Palestinians were killed and 17 wounded yesterday by a massive explosion during an Israeli Army incursion into the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.
The three dead were named as Akram Hadidi, 31, Maisara Abu Soneima, 19, and Mohammed Abu Naba, 18.
Among the wounded were three children under the age of 10 as well as a Palestinian cameraman for the Reuters news agency.
Witnesses said the blast was caused by a tank shell, but Israeli sources insisted their forces had nothing to do with the explosion.
Around half a dozen tanks had entered the town in the early hours in the latest of a series of incursions.
The armed wing of Hamas said in a statement that it had fired rockets against the tanks and Israeli Army jeeps near a clinic serving Palestinian refugees.
An Israeli source said that while there had been exchanges of fire, the fatal blast was not caused by the soldiers.
“The last time we fired in the area was about an hour and a half before. For sure it had nothing to do with us,” he said.
Rafah has been the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting in the Middle East conflict in recent months, with some 40 Palestinians killed during a major Israeli offensive in May.
Residents said 10 houses had been bulldozed during the latest operation which has so far failed to locate any tunnels.
Meanwhile, Hamas’ military wing threatened to rain down rockets on the southern Israeli town of Sderot if the army does not pull out of the besieged northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoon.
“Residents of Sderot, stop your army’s crimes and get it out of Beit Hanoon, or else you will be the ones paying the price,” warned one of three masked gunmen on the footage aired by the Dubai-based satellite channel Al-Arabiya.
“We have decided to send you Qassam rockets to whatever place you thought was safe. We have prepared rockets that can reach wherever we want ... and we will continue to bombard you daily,” he said, reading from a prepared statement.
It is believed to be the first such videotaped warning by Hamas which has been behind the majority of attacks on Israeli targets during the intifada.
Israeli troops poured back into Beit Hanoon in late June after a makeshift Qassam rocket fired by Hamas killed two Israelis in Sderot, in the first such fatalities inside the Jewish state.
But the army has so far failed to prevent more rockets being fired.
Hamas representatives joined other delegates from the armed Palestinian factions yesterday in Cairo ahead of talks with Egyptian officials who have been playing a key mediation role over Israel’s planned pullout from the Gaza Strip.
Sources from the factions said that the overall leader of Hamas, politburo chief Khalid Meshaal, had arrived in Cairo and was expected to meet with intelligence officials.
Omar Suleiman, head of Egypt’s intelligence services, has held a series of meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders about Israel’s planned withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza next year, with Cairo determined that the pullout does not lead to chaos on its borders.
— Additional input from agencies
