Israelis kill six as mortar attacks prompt raid
At least five other Palestinians were trapped in an arms-smuggling tunnel that collapsed as it was being dug under an army-controlled security strip between the Gaza town of Rafah and nearby Egypt, witnesses from Rafah said.
Palestinian ambulances and rescue crews given clearance by Israeli forces rushed to the scene.
Palestinian officials said earlier accounts that two men had been extracted from the tunnel were incorrect.
“We are still digging, we cannot yet determine their fate,” a security official said by telephone from Rafah.
Israeli troops have raided Rafah many times to battle militants waging a four-year-old revolt, killing hundreds of Palestinians and leaving thousands homeless from demolitions of homes suspected of hiding tunnels.
At least six Palestinians were killed and 24 wounded in yesterday’s army raid into Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest city.
Four of the dead were militants and two were civilian bystanders, local medics and witnesses said.
The incursion unfolded hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told a high-profile security conference that there was a unique chance for Middle East peacemaking with new Palestinian leaders following the death of Yasser Arafat.
Sharon said he was ready to coordinate a planned pullout from Gaza with a moderate post-Arafat leader, likely to be Mahmoud Abbas. He is favoured to win a January 9 presidential election and advocates a halt to violence and fresh talks.
About 600 people, many carrying small children in freezing pre-dawn darkness, fled homes in neighborhoods bearing the brunt of the raid and were given shelter in a UN-run school.
They said a number of homes were demolished.
“What peace and what pullout? We only feel fear and cold. I do not know even if my house was still standing or if it was demolished,” Kamilia Attobji, 36, a mother of 10, said.
Israeli forces say buildings they raze in such raids are used as cover for militants targeting settlements.
The incursion was only the second serious army sweep into Palestinian territory since a short period of calm following Arafat’s death on November 11.
Rocket and mortar fire by militants has since restarted with some 30 attacks this month.
