Israeli troops stormed homes in this Palestinian refugee camp yesterday in an ongoing search for militants and illegal weapons, confining tens of thousands of residents to houses without electricity or water.
The invasion, launched on Tuesday, knocked out electricity in the Rafah refugee camp, home to an estimated 90,000 people, local Palestinian officials said. By yesterday, water service had been halted as well, they said.
Twenty Palestinians -- the highest single-day death toll in more than two years -- were killed on Tuesday, the first day of the army's "Operation Rainbow" offensive. Among the dead were a 16-year-old girl and her 13-year-old brother.
PHOTO: EPA
International condemnation mounted against the operation, and the US said it was asking Israel for "clarification." The UN and the EU demanded an end to the incursion, which Israeli security officials said would last at least a week.
The massive invasion, the largest in the Gaza Strip in years, came less than a week after Palestinian militants killed 13 soldiers -- seven in the Rafah area.
Israel said it was targeting armed militants, but Palestinians said many of Tuesday's casualties were civilians.
Palestinians said the teenage brother and sister were killed by an Israeli sniper as they gathered laundry from their rooftop.
But the military said an initial investigation found no Israeli soldiers had fired in that area at the time of the shootings. The military said the two had apparently been killed by a Palestinian bomb aimed at troops.
Early yesterday, the army said it demolished the home of Ibrahim Ahmed, an Islamic Jihad militant it said was responsible for a shooting attack earlier this month that killed a pregnant Israeli woman and her four daughters near a Gaza settlement. Palestinian witnesses said at least three homes were demolished overnight.
Ali Bayomi, a 55-year-old resident of Rafah, said soldiers had arrested two of his cousins and were using the men as human shields as they conducted home searches. He said the soldiers had disguised themselves as Hamas militants before arresting the men. The army did not comment.
Salwa Abu Jazar, a 33-year-old mother of four, said her family got almost no sleep overnight because of the sound of combat helicopters and shooting that echoed through the camp.
"There is no water, no electricity and it is very hard to move inside the house using candles because snipers in the building next door will shoot you," Abu Jazar said.
The army said it had shot and hit two armed men overnight in Rafah. Palestinian residents said one man had been hit in the head and stomach, and the other in the leg. They said ambulances were having difficulty evacuating dead and wounded to the hospitals due to the intense fighting.
The facades of Rafah buildings were riddled with holes from Israeli machine guns. Residents said they sheltered from rocket and gun fire in the innermost rooms of their homes.
Saleem Katib, 25, said his father went to morning prayers early Tuesday and still had not returned. Unable to maneuver back to his house due to the fighting and the military curfew, Katib said his father -- an elderly, sick man -- was holed up near the mosque with other worshippers.
"How can you believe that a man can't reach his home when he is only 20 meters away?" Katib said.
In all, 19 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday by Israeli fire -- 10 in two separate missile strikes and nine by machine-gun fire, said Moawiya Hassanain, a senior Palestinian Health Ministry official. A 20th man was killed while handling explosives.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat denounced the incursion as a "planned massacre."
"What is happening in Rafah is an operation to destroy and to transfer the local Palestinian population, and this must not be accepted, not by the Palestinians, nor the Arabs, nor by the international community," an angry Arafat told reporters at his West Bank compound.
The Israeli Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a petition by 46 Rafah residents against demolition of their homes, giving the army the right to tear down buildings that could be used for attacking troops.
US President George W. Bush said the violence was "troubling," but said Israel had the right to defend itself from terrorism.
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