Dozens of Palestinians, angry over Israel’s bloodiest raid in the Gaza Strip in years, smashed the windows of a U.N. car Saturday and mobbed a shipment of humanitarian aid. "Where have you been?" one man screamed as others pounded on the cars in the U.N. convoy as it entered a sealed-off neighborhood in Rafah refugee camp to survey damage and deliver aid supplies, including powdered milk.
| Wherever they were, I'll bet they're thinking of going back... |
Israel pulled many troops and tanks out of the camp on Friday following international pressure to end more than three days of fighting but denied the operation, in which 42 Palestinians were killed and hundreds left homeless, was over. In the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood, witnesses said the army pulled out its armored vehicles but continued to cut off access roads to the rest of the camp, and had left residents without power or running water for days. An Israeli army spokeswoman said international relief workers in the past few days were allowed to deliver aid, such as medicine, food and water, to residents in the camp. Inside Tel al-Sultan, roads were ripped up by tank tracks, which also ruined outlying fields. Armored vehicles and tanks blocked the entrance to the neighborhood, preventing residents from entering or leaving.
Two small girls stood in their doorway and waved empty water jugs as the convoy from the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, passed near their home. "We were four days without water," said Ramy Salem, 22. "We didn’t feel safe. The children cried for four days." Maha, 12, said: "There is no milk. We want milk." Dozens of Palestinian men and boys gathered at the entrance to Tel al-Sultan and a few threw stones at cars in the convoy, which carried UNRWA chief Peter Hansen.
Hansen said bodies of Palestinians who died in the raid, many of them from Tel al-Sultan, were in a morgue because their families were unable to come out and bury them. "I appeal to the army to enable families secluded in Tel al-Sultan to be given permission to participate in burials," Hansen told journalists. "There are still a number of people who have not been buried." He said the raid, which began Tuesday, had left more than 1,600 Palestinians homeless. The army, which said it was searching for tunnels used for arms smuggling dug under the Egypt-Gaza border, mounted its biggest Gaza raid in years after militants killed 13 soldiers last week. Ismail Abu Mohsen, 20, said he saw Israeli snipers shoot Palestinians in the street. "Anyone who went out into the street, the Israelis shot them," he said. "I saw two people get shot on this street in the neck and head." Abu Mohsen did not say whether the two people were armed.
Suleiman Baroud, 47, said soldiers took over apartments, locking residents in a single room for days. "They came in the house and put the whole family in one room," he said. Residents said about 35 homes were demolished and dozens damaged during the raid. The army disputes this, saying it destroyed only five houses and others had been damaged by gunbattles with Palestinian militants. |