RAFAH, Gaza Strip, 22 May 2004 — The Israeli Army on Friday pulled out of several areas of Rafah amid an international outcry over the killings of more than 40 Palestinians there this week in a devastating military raid.
The rubble of dozens of homes leveled by Israeli bulldozers lined streets pitted with huge craters in Rafah town and the adjoining refugee camp, located near the border with Egypt.
An Israeli Army spokesman said “Operation Rainbow”, launched early Tuesday to stamp out what it called cross-border weapons smuggling from Egypt and arrest wanted militants, was continuing and that the troop withdrawal was merely a “redeployment.”
Israeli forces abandoned the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, where they used tanks and helicopters to attack protesters on Wednesday against their operation, killing 10 Palestinians, including children.
In the Salam and Brazil neighborhoods, tanks and armored vehicles were still in position yesterday, and curfew remained in effect. Israeli military sources said infantry units in the two areas had been pulled out.
By late afternoon, Rafah was largely quiet save for the occasional firing by the Israeli forces. The Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood remained closed off from the rest of the town, as residents of the Brazil area sifted through the piles of debris.
The army spokesman said soldiers were still searching for tunnels believed to be used to smuggle weapons, but acknowledged that not one new tunnel had been discovered since the launch of the raid.
The troops left behind leaflets in the ravaged town — where a total of 42 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli raid — calling on the population to prevent “terrorists” from operating in the area.
A total of 40 homes were completely destroyed in the Brazil, Janaina and Salam neighborhoods, and dozens of others were partially demolished, according to Palestinian security sources.
Fatima Abu Hamed, 75, sifted through the rubble of her home with a piece of chipboard, digging out some medical tablets and an identity card in order to obtain vital food aid from the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
“They came at 6:00 a.m. and we didn’t have any time to collect anything except the clothes we are wearing,” she told AFP. “We cried out but the soldiers did not care that we were inside so we had to escape out of the back door.”
Muin Abu Taha, 14, vainly searches through what was once his family home in Rafah, reduced to rubble by an army bulldozer, for his school books, without which he cannot take year-end exams.
The army razed the two-story Abu Taha home in the gutted Brazil neighborhood, leaving Muin without hope for finishing the school year.
“My textbooks are gone, my notebooks are gone. I am not going to be able to sit for my exams in two weeks,” yells the scrawny boy, clad in a ripped jumper and worn-out jeans, amid the ruins.
Standing in the piles of gravel that were once her home, Umm Hassan Awad launched a hail of criticism at Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his close ally, US President George W. Bush. The Israelis “are liars. The tunnels that they say they’re looking for don’t exist. All they want to do is destroy everything that we own,” she says.
Meanwhile, Israeli police clashed with hundreds of Israeli demonstrators who had marched on the Kissufim border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip to demand an end to the army’s operation in Rafah.
Witnesses said police dragged and hit some protesters, who were booed by Jewish settlers living in the Gaza Strip and who massed on the other side of the checkpoint. Five people were detained, according to witnesses.
