JERUSALEM, 3 October 2004 — The Israeli carnage continued in Gaza yesterday and the massive Israeli incursion killed a further 11 Palestinians. The Palestinian Cabinet declared a state of emergency in the Palestinian territories with leader Yasser Arafat appealing for international help.
Seven were killed in the early hours of yesterday while another died of his wounds, with two subsequent Israeli airstrikes killing one and then two Palestinians.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called on the world to end the “criminal and racist” Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip, which the Jewish state says is to root out Palestinians firing improvised rockets into Israeli territory.
But Palestinian group Hamas said yesterday it would continue to fire the rockets and would target the port city of Ashkelon.
“The Israeli military operation has failed,” said a leader of Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedin Al-Qassam Brigades, in a press conference at the Jabaliya refugee camp, a focal point in the fighting, adding: “We will continue to fire Qassam rockets.”
However, another Hamas leader later said that his group was prepared to stop firing rockets if Israeli forces ended their campaign in the northern Gaza Strip.
“Our sons will stop the firing of Qassam rockets as a means of defense if the Israeli occupier ceases its aggressive incursion and its occupation in the north of the Gaza Strip,” said Ismail Haniyeh.
Arafat, speaking to journalists outside his headquarters after the emergency Cabinet session, said: “I call on the entire world to act immediately and rapidly to stop the criminal and racist” attack launched by the Israeli Army.
At the same time, he denied that any of the rockets fired at Israel had caused any casualties, contradicting Israeli reports that two children had been killed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday.
“These rockets the Israelis are talking about have not killed anyone ... and only make noise,” he said.
A Palestinian Cabinet statement called for international intervention, humanitarian help for the people of Gaza and denounced what it called “world silence in the face of the magnitude of crimes committed”.
Israeli troops have killed 56 Palestinians since Tuesday night when more than 100 Israeli tanks, backed by aircraft, moved into the northern Gaza Strip in the operation called “Days of Penitence”.
Shops closed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday in a widely followed strike to protest the deaths of the Palestinians.
Egypt and France yesterday joined mounting calls for a halt to the violence while Spain, Switzerland, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Canada also expressed concern at the continuing violence.
The Arab League announced that it will hold an emergency session today to discuss the violence in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian representative said.
Mohammed Sobeih said the permanent delegates to the league would meet at the request of the Palestinians to “discuss the savage and continuing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in all cities, villages and refugee camps, notably in the Gaza Strip”.
Palestinian security sources said Israeli gunfire killed a Palestinian early yesterday near his home in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinians died and four were wounded in an Israeli air raid on the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip overnight, Palestinian security officials said.
In a separate operation, Israeli troops shot dead four Palestinians after they had managed to infiltrate Israel from the Gaza Strip, the military said.
Later, hospital sources in Gaza City said a Palestinian hit during an Israeli air raid on the Jabaliya camp on Friday died of his wounds, with one Palestinian killed and four seriously wounded during another Israeli attack on Jabaliya yesterday.
Two Hamas men were killed when a rocket fired by an Israeli helicopter slammed into their vehicle in the Gaza Strip, medics said, leaving seven others wounded.
On the Israeli side, two soldiers and a female Jewish settler in the Gaza Strip have also died since the incursion began.
A Palestinian teenager, wounded by Israeli gunfire on July 29 in Rafah, died yesterday, bringing to 4,412 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada. This includes 3,388 Palestinians and 953 Israelis.
Israel meanwhile said it would lodge a protest with the United Nations after releasing footage of what it says are Palestinians using a UN ambulance to transport rockets, Israeli Army radio reported.
The announcement followed a complaint from the United Nations that Israeli troops had occupied three UN-run schools and used them as firing positions for tanks.
