- KERRY O'BRIEN: Elsewhere in the Middle East, Israeli
tanks, troops and bulldozers have once again moved against suspected Palestinian
terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip, which separates Israel from Egypt.
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- The United Nations criticised Israel over a similar operation
last month, when Israeli forces entered the Rafah Refugee Camp, searching
for tunnels used by Palestinian militias to smuggle in arms.
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- According to the UN, the raid left hundreds of homes
destroyed and thousands homeless.
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- Israel rejects those figures, and says the operation
was essential to protect its citizens, including Jewish settlers living
in the Gaza Strip.
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- One such community is only a short drive from Rafah.
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- And soon after the Rafah raid, the settlement of Netzarim
was in turn attacked by Palestinian gunmen who killed three soldiers.
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- Middle East correspondent Mark Willacy reports from the
Gaza Strip on the two battle-weary communities, each trying to find peace
and security.
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- MARK WILLACY: The first cold winds heralding the approach
of winter have begun sweeping through the Rafah refugee camp.
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- For many Palestinians, like Azza Al Absi, this winter
will be their toughest yet.
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- AZZA AL ABSI, RAFAH RESIDENT (TRANSLATION): All of us
were in the house, 36 family members in all, when at midnight we saw the
Israeli tanks and helicopters, so we ran away.
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- A few people were shot, one of them was my son.
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- We came back the next day and found that our house had
been demolished and everything inside destroyed.
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- MARK WILLACY: Israeli raids into Rafah are routine, but
last month came Operation Root Canal.
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- This was no ordinary incursion.
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- MAJOR SHARON FEINGOLD, ISRAELI MILITARY: The reason for
the operations are the tunnels which are dug under the international border
between Egypt and Israel.
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- These tunnels, as we see them, are the arteries of terror.
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- MARK WILLACY: Israeli soldiers spent days inside the
camp hunting for the tunnels which are used by Palestinian militants to
smuggle weapons.
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- They found three before pulling out.
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- None was found under Azza Al Absi's house.
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- But, when the Israeli troops and tanks pulled out, her
house was a pile of rubble.
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- The UN estimates that this one raid left at least 200
buildings flattened and about 2,000 people homeless.
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- PAUL McCANN, UNITED NATIONS REFUGEE AGENCY: The town
is hemmed in on one side by the Egyptian border, which is controlled by
Israel, and on another side by Jewish settlements, controlled, again, by
the Israeli military.
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- There is firing almost every night.
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- There's nowhere for people to go.
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- They're up against death, really.
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- There's very little work.
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- It was already a dusty, poor town and so now we're feeding
large numbers of people, providing them with shelter, assistance, tents,
blankets and water.
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- It's a really very desperate situation there.
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- MARK WILLACY: The Israeli military says it doesn't know
the exact number of houses it blew up or bulldozed during Operation Root
Canal.
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- MARK WILLACY (TO MAJOR SHARON FEINGOLD): Do you concede
that some innocent people are having their homes destroyed because they've
been caught up in all this smuggling?
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- MAJOR SHARON FEINGOLD: Yes, and this is the unfortunate
thing about Rafah and about most of the Palestinian areas.
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- It's a sad factor that the people of Rafah, the innocent
civilians who live there, have to pay the heavy price for the mobsters
and gangsters who operate these tunnels.
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- Like most of the Middle East, Gazans are observing the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan - fasting from sunrise to sunset, night is
a time for family and feasting.
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- It's also the most dangerous time to venture out.
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- Here on the border with with Egypt, Israel keeps a close
eye on all movement, and every night Rafah reverberates with gunfire.
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- It's about 7:15 in the evening and, as we can hear, the
guard posts which ring Rafah have started firing out.
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- There are about four guard posts starting from about
there, one there, one there, one there.
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- There's been sporadic firing for about the last 10 minutes
but it's been enough for several of the local families to pull their children
inside.
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- During this clash, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy was
hit by Israeli fire.
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- He died the next day.
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- Rafah isn't the only dangerous spot in the Gaza Strip.
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- Twenty-five kilometres down the road is the Jewish settlement
of Netzarim, home to 60 families.
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- Here, Israelis arm themselves with machine guns to walk
their children to school.
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- Last month, under the cover of fog and disguised as soldiers,
two Palestinian gunmen - one from Hamas, the other from Islamic Jihad -
cut their way through Netzarim's security fence.
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- Once inside, they killed three soldiers, two of them
women.
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- The soldiers were members of an entire battalion which
is stationed at the settlement.
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- Despite the constant Palestinian attacks, the 60 families
in Netzarim say they're going nowhere.
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- SHLOMIT ZIV, NETZARIM RESIDENT: They must understand
that this is our home and this is our land and we are the rulers.
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- And then they can stay.
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- MARK WILLACY: Shlomit Ziv and her husband moved to Netzarim
11 years ago because it's what she calls an idealistic community.
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- She acknowledges that the constant stream of attacks
can be hard on her seven children.
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- SHLOMIT ZIV; It can be shooting towards the village,
it can be bombs fall, it can be trying to come into the village even though
the army is doing a good job.
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- And they are so many times that they try it and they
don't succeed.
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- But, when they succeed, all the country hears about it,
all the world hears about it, but the times they try and don't succeed
is every day.
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- MARK WILLACY: The only way in or out of Netzarim is in
an armoured bus under army escort.
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- Three days before the 7:30 Report visited, the bus was
hit by gunfire and, a few days before that, an anti-task missile narrowly
missed it.
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- While there's renewed talk of a cease-fire from the armed
Palestinian militias, the largest and most deadly group, Hamas, believe
settlers are fair game.
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- SHEIKH AHMED YASSIN, HAMAS SPIRITUAL LEADER (TRANSLATION):
Until now we've made no decision about a cease-fire.
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- But those people, the settlers, they always have to be
targeted because, if they aren't targeted, it means we accept the settlements
AND the occupation.
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- MARK WILLACY: Palestinians say, while several thousand
Jewish settlers live in 40 per cent of Gaza, the 90,000 Palestinians in
the Rafah refugee camp endure cramped, Third World conditions, and, as
winter looms, Azza Al Absi's search to live somewhere becomes more desperate.
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- AZZA AL ABSI (TRANSLATION): First, I need a house to
live in, but here we don't have a life or future as long as the Israelis
stay here.
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- We don't have stability either.
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- SHLOMIT ZIV: It's war, and in war people get hurt.
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- MARK WILLACY: Rafah and Netzarim may be only minutes
apart geographically but these two communities are miles apart when it
comes to finding peace.
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- © 2003 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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- http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s993118.htm
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