Palestinians die in assault on Israeli bulldozer

Bassam Masoud, a cameraman working for Reuters Television, can be seen with wounds in his head and hand moments after an explosion killed at least three people and wounded several in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah yesterday. PHOTO: AP

A bomb planted by militants trying to blow up an Israeli bulldozer yesterday killed three Palestinians during an Israeli operation to destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels, the militants and the Israeli army said.

The roadside bomb in the Rafah refugee camp went off a few meters from where the bulldozer was piling up mounds of dirt in a crowded residential area, according to television footage.

The violence came a day after vigilantes killed three Palestinians convicted of collaborating with Israel -- two of them in their hospital beds -- in an incident that highlighted the progressive breakdown of law and order in Gaza.

The Hamas militant organization said two of the casualties in Rafah were its members, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed one of the dead men. The explosion blew off half of one man's skull.

Palestinian officials said there was no fire from Israeli helicopters that were flying overhead or from Israeli tanks.

Reporters the dead men were more than 200m away when they were hit by shrapnel from the huge explosion.

Ten were wounded, including a Reuters TV cameraman who suffered a shrapnel wound in his hand, according to witnesses and hospital officials.

No Israelis were injured.

Moments masked militants were filmed putting a detonator in an alley near the road. Palestinian ambulances already were standing by, as people in nearby buildings waved white flags to show the Israelis the buildings were inhabited by civilians.

The Israeli army has been conducting an extensive operation in the Gaza-Egypt border area since before dawn yesterday.

The Rafah border area is strewn with land mines and other roadside bombs planted by militants. The bulldozers and sappers scour the area to destroy tunnels used by Palestinians to smuggle arms from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Hamas aired a video on the Al-Arabiya satellite television showing three masked men surrounded by weapons. One of the men read a statement threatening to rain rockets from the Gaza Strip on the Israeli town of Sderot.

"We will continue to shell you every day to see what your defeated army will do for you," the Hamas threat said. "Oh residents of Sderot, stop your army from carrying out their crimes and get them out of Beit Hanoun, otherwise you will pay the price."

The Israeli army has been clearing fields in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun since June, when two Sderot residents were killed by rocket fire.

On Monday, Palestinian vigilantes executed two collaborators in their beds in a Gaza hospital, where they were taken hours earlier with injuries from a grenade explosion in their jail cell that killed a third spy.

The episode occurred just as Palestinian President Yasser Arafat ordered a restoration of law and order in the Palestinian territories, where militants outgun the fragmented Palestinian police forces.

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