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Army kills four Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Israeli Army Kills Four in Gaza Strip
Sun Oct 13,10:41 AM ET
By Dan Williams
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Two Palestinians, one a toddler, were killed and more than 30 wounded in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) on Sunday when Israeli troops raided a crowded refugee camp and razed houses.
The army demolished two homes that it said concealed arms-smuggling tunnels. The force of the blast leveled the walls of nearby homes, killing a three-year-old boy in one and wounding at least 25 people in others, witnesses said.
Witnesses and Palestinian medics said a 26-year-old local man was also killed by Israeli machinegun fire and five people were wounded in the overnight tank raid into Rafah refugee camp.
Since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began in 2000, the army has often raided Rafah in operations it says are aimed at destroying tunnels dug by militants to bring arms and fighters into the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
It said in the latest operation soldiers found one tunnel access point behind a baby's crib and another in a kitchen.
Rafah is a militant stronghold and at least one Israeli army vehicle came under grenade attack during the raid, which the army said was an operation to "fight terror and the smuggling of weapons in the Gaza Strip."
Palestinian adviser Nabil Abu Rdainah said the raid was part of a "dangerous policy and escalation which targets not just the Palestinians but also puts the whole area in danger."
Israeli diplomatic sources said Washington gave a letter to Israel on Friday criticizing it for not fulfilling promises to ease the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for Palestinians and for Gaza raids in which civilians were killed.
Violence has increased since an Israeli air raid in the Strip last week killed 17 Palestinians and wounded about 80.
INFILTRATION FROM EGYPT
Soldiers also shot dead two Palestinian gunmen as they tried to penetrate the Israeli town of Yevul near the frontier with Egypt. Two Israeli soldiers were wounded in the gunfight.
"We had a warning of a breach in the border fence and responded quickly with a pursuit. The two terrorists spotted us and opened fire. We shot them," Major Gal Amar told Reuters.
The infiltration was the first militant action across the Israel-Egypt border in more than a decade. Yevul is a few kilometers south of Israel's boundary with the Gaza Strip, one of the areas where Palestinians are fighting Israeli occupation.
The clash was about 500 meters (yards) from the frontier.
"This is something that will definitely require we examine anew the border known as the 'border of peace'," Brigadier Yisrael Ziv, Israel's army commander in the Gaza Strip, told reporters. In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel.
The Ahmad Abu al-Rish Brigades, a militant offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s Fatah (news - web sites) faction, claimed the dead fighters as its own. "This operation was a gift to martyrs who have fallen in Gaza," it said in a faxed statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) travels to the United States for talks with President Bush (news - web sites) this week.
Sharon told the cabinet on Sunday he would discuss the supervision of funds withheld by Israel during the uprising owed to the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) so they would not pay for "terror."
Arafat, under pressure at home and abroad to reform his administration, continued consultations on a new cabinet on Sunday with an eye to elections next year.
At least 1,612 Palestinians and 604 Israelis have been killed in the uprising that flared after peace talks stalled.
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