Israeli tanks and troops began withdrawing from Rafah refugee camp yesterday under international pressure to end three days of fighting in which 41 Palestinians were killed.
An Israeli military source said a "redeployment" was under way.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The Israeli army, saying it was searching for weapons-smuggling tunnels dug under the Egypt-Gaza border, sent dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops into Rafah on Tuesday in the biggest Gaza raid in years after militants killed 13 soldiers.
Israeli security sources said a smaller contingent would remain in Rafah, a militant stronghold, for an undefined period of time.
As troops withdrew, leaving behind torn-up roads and toppled power lines, hundreds of residents in the Brazil neighborhood returned to their homes to find some 25 had been destroyed while they had taken refuge away from the violence.
"We took our children away and fled for our lives and as you see the houses are completely demolished," Rafah resident Naeema Abu-Jerida said.
"Thank God we had time to leave, but we had no chance to take any of our belongings with us," Abu-Jerida said.
International pressure on Israel to quit the area mounted after its forces killed 10 Palestinians at a peaceful protest in Rafah on Wednesday. Troops said they did not aim to hit the rally.
US President George W. Bush's administration showed rare displeasure with Israel by not vetoing a UN resolution urging an end to the violence.
In Washington, a senior State Department official said Israeli Vice Premier Ehud Olmert had assured the US it would not demolish any more homes in Rafah or widen an adjacent flashpoint buffer zone on the Egyptian frontier.
"Olmert did tell us when he came in Tuesday that there would not be further demolition of houses and that they were not going to widen the strip. We'll see what happens," said an official who asked not to be named.
Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz on Thursday instructed the army to recast its plan to expand the Israeli-patrolled buffer area dubbed "Philadelphi Road" to limit the number of Palestinian homes that would be razed, Israeli media reported.
Israel's army chief had threatened to destroy hundreds of houses in a bid to boost security for soldiers who come under constant attack in the border strip.
"My house was toppled on our heads," recalled Nabil Hassan, 52, as he stood on the rubble of his home yesterday.
"The army did not warn us, did not ask us to leave, they started while we were still inside," he said.
He said he and his family of 13 had taken shelter in a bathroom as bulldozers continued working but managed to get out after a neighbor told soldiers they were still inside.
In apparent preparation for the partial pullout, soldiers distributed leaflets in Rafah listing names of wanted militants and warning residents against cooperating with them.
"These people are sabotaging your life with their terrorist activity," the leaflets said.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS