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Deadly gaza attack { August 30 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/30/international/middleeast/30GAZA.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/30/international/middleeast/30GAZA.html
August 30, 2002
Relatives Recall Deadly Attack on Gaza
By JOEL GREENBERG
GAZA, Aug. 29 — It was after 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Sharif al-Hajeen recalled today, when Israeli tank shells crashed with deadly accuracy into the plot of fig trees and grapevines in the dunes south of Gaza City where his family works days and sleeps nights during the summer picking season.
Some of Mr. al-Hajeen's brothers and cousins had been sitting on the sand, he said, others were stretched out in the warm summer night, when two Israeli tanks protecting the adjacent settlement of Netzarim crested a rise no more than 100 yards away. The men ducked under a fig tree, and the shells landed among them, followed by machine-gun fire, Mr. al-Hajeen said. Two of his brothers and a cousin were killed. His mother was cut down as she ran to help her stricken sons. A 4-year-old son trailing behind her was among the other family members injured.
Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer expressed regret over the loss of innocent lives, adding that he had ordered the army to submit the results and lessons learned from its investigation of the incident.
The Palestinian interior minister, Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, canceled a meeting today with Mr. Ben-Eliezer in protest over the incident. Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, said it showed "the real intentions of those who give these orders."
Palestinian militants, who led a funeral for the four dead, vowed revenge against Israel. Ismail Haniya, a spokesman for Hamas, urged "escalation of the resistance in response to these massacres."
Wednesday's incident highlighted the daily, often deadly, friction between forces guarding Jewish settlements and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Gunmen regularly fire at army positions around Netzarim, and the army says it has stopped several infiltration attempts. The Israelis have bulldozed large swaths of Palestinian-owned farmland in what they say is an attempt to deny cover to the attackers. Beyond the denuded areas, Israeli tanks patrol a wide perimeter around the settlement.
About a month ago, Mr. al-Hajeen said, soldiers who came to the family's plot were told that people slept there at night, and the troops gave assurances that as long as no one approached their positions, the farmers would be safe. Tanks often appeared on the dunes overlooking the area, he said, and during the day local children would wave at them.
An army spokesman said the Palestinians had been warned that movement in the area at night was dangerous. On Wednesday night, the spokesman said, troops looking through night-vision equipment spotted people crawling toward Netzarim and opened fire.
Mr. al-Hajeen said he was thrown into the air by the blast, and later crawled to safety, wounded in the legs. The army said it later found "signs of crawling and a cellular phone" at the scene.
The dead were identified as Ruwaida al-Hajeen, 43; her two sons, Ashraf, 23, and Nihad, 19; and a cousin, Muhammad, 18.
Devastated by its losses, the al-Hajeen family was adopted today by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who draped the the dead with their flags and punctuated their funeral with gunfire and defiant slogans from sound trucks.
"Jihad is our path to liberate our land," echoed a cry as hundreds of mourners wound through the dusty streets of Gaza. "We will avenge the crimes of the occupation."
The army said that it had tightened restrictions on fire by tanks in the Gaza Strip and that firing would now require prior approval from more senior officers.
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