|
Israeli army raids gaza after car bombing Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5944733http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5944733
Israeli Army Raids Gaza Camp After Car Bombing
Wed Aug 11, 2004 07:15 PM ET
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled into a Gaza refugee camp on Thursday and began demolishing houses hours after a West Bank checkpoint car bombing killed two Palestinians.
A military source said troops had entered the Rafah camp to conduct a "centered operation against terror infrastructures in the area."
Witnesses said troops ordered many people to leave their homes as several tanks and bulldozers began demolishing houses. One bulldozer knocked down a wall of a house while a family was inside but caused no casualties, the witnesses said.
Israel has frequently raided the camp, a militant stronghold located near the Egyptian border. Hundreds of Palestinians have been made homeless after Israeli forces destroyed their homes in the hunt for tunnels dug by Gaza militants to smuggle in weapons from Egypt.
The latest raid followed a Palestinian car bombing on Wednesday at the Qalandiya military checkpoint near Jerusalem. The blast killed two Palestinians and injured 19 people, including six Israeli border policeman.
Militants within Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement claimed responsibility for the bombing and apologized for the Palestinian casualties, saying their target had been Israeli security forces at adjacent checkpoints.
Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman said the bomb was destined for downtown Jerusalem and that it was apparently detonated by remote control by a militant who left it in a bag beside a car and fled when he saw policemen approaching.
One of the dead was named as 56-year-old Salah Abu Sneinah, who died at the wheel of his car. The other was not identified.
"Where's my dad? Where's my dad? My dad, my love!!" Naheda Abu Sneinah, 15, Abu Sneinah's daughter who was in the car with him, screamed in grief inside the Ramallah hospital where his body was taken.
The checkpoint bomb broke a lull in militant attacks in the Jerusalem area since February, when a suicide bomber killed eight people aboard a Jerusalem municipal bus.
Hours after the bombing, Israeli helicopters fired missiles into Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza and hit a house, causing structural damage but no casualties, witnesses said.
A military source said army helicopters had fired at an abandoned building suspected of being used by Palestinian militants to shoot at Israeli soldiers.
Palestinian militants have carried out scores of suicide and ambush attacks on Israelis during an uprising launched almost four years ago in the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
Militant attacks inside Israel have abated this year. Israel says this follows Israeli killings of many cell commanders in raids, better intelligence and Israel's partially built West Bank barrier.
But violence has surged in parts of the territories, especially Gaza, where militants seek to portray Israel's plan to evacuate Jewish settlers in 2005 as a victory. Israel is determined to prevent that by smashing Palestinian armed factions first.
(Additional reporting by Cynthia Johnston and Diala Saadeh in Ramallah, Corinne Heller in Jerusalem)
|
|
