- RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters)
-- Israeli tanks and helicopters fired on protesters in a refugee camp
on Wednesday, killing 10 Palestinians and raising a two-day death toll
to 33 in Israel's bloodiest Gaza raid in years, witnesses said.
-
- Medics said about 50 people were wounded at the besieged
Rafah camp in southern Gaza and that the casualties included many children
and teenagers.
-
- The firing sent a marching crowd fleeing in terror, some
dragging bloodied comrades and others carrying wounded children in their
arms, demonstrators said.
-
- Expressing "deep sorrow over the loss of civilian
lives," the army said it did not fire deliberately at the procession
but that tank fire designed to drive back the protesters may have caused
casualties. It said gunmen were among the crowd.
-
- "It was horrifying," said Mahmoud Abu Hashem,
35. "There was one person with his intestines coming out. Another
had blood covering his face and you couldn't even make out his features."
-
- The Palestinian Authority called it a "war crime"
and demanded international protection for Palestinians.
-
- In a rare but gently worded rebuff to its ally, Washington
said it was "very concerned" about the number of Palestinian
deaths in Gaza and had asked Israel to explain its actions.
-
- The bloodshed seemed certain to bring renewed international
pressure on Israel to end its assault, which began on Tuesday with the
stated goal of rooting out militants and uncovering tunnels used to smuggle
weapons across the border from Egypt.
-
- BODIES PILE UP
-
- Bodies carried on piling up in a flower freezer converted
into a makeshift morgue after staff at the refugee camp's main hospital
strained to cope with the dead along with dozens of wounded in two days
of Israeli military assaults.
-
- The firing began as marchers surged toward the Tel Sultan
neighborhood, focal point of Israel's sweep into Rafah, to demand that
humanitarian aid be allowed in.
-
- Residents flooded the hospital to look for loved ones.
"Did you see my brothers, the three of them who were in the rally?"
cried one person. "Where is Ahmed?" a woman shouted.
-
- Brigadier Ruth Yaron, Israel's chief military spokeswoman,
told Army Radio: "The claim that this was a case of deliberate fire
(at the crowd) is false and I reject it completely."
-
- She said the army was investigating and it was too soon
to say what happened. But an army statement said Palestinians had rigged
the road used by the marchers with explosives against Israeli forces.
-
- Palestinians said the incident evoked bitter memories
of the army's 2002 assault on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank,
where forces flattened an entire neighborhood during pitched battles with
militants following suicide bombings in Israel.
-
- Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians
in Rafah and demanded the surrender of militants. Troops searched house
to house amid clashes with gunmen.
-
- An international outcry was sparked by Israeli threats
to flatten hundreds of Rafah homes to widen an army-controlled security
corridor along the border with Egypt.
-
- Amid the bloodletting, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
worked to revive his Gaza withdrawal plan, which aides said may be presented
for cabinet approval as early as next week.
-
- Violence has worsened in Gaza since Sharon proposed evacuating
troops and Jewish settlers in a plan backed by most Israelis and the United
States, but rejected by his right-wing Likud party in a referendum earlier
this month.
-
- Palestinian militants want to claim as a victory any
pullout by Israel from territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East
war, but the army is determined to smash them first.
-
- - Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza
-
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