Troops storm Gaza camp in arms smuggling operation

Israel sent dozens of tanks into a Gaza refugee camp early today, on a mission military officials said was to destroy tunnels used by Palestinians to smuggle weapons.

The raid at the Rafah camp followed warnings that militants were trying to acquire anti-aircraft missiles.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Palestinian politics were in turmoil after the parliament failed to approve the emergency Cabinet appointed by Yasser Arafat, leading new prime minister Ahmed Qureia to indicate he no longer wanted the job.

A Palestinian suicide bomber also targeted an Israeli liaison office, injuring two soldiers and a Palestinian.

Witnesses said tanks and other armoured vehicles entered Rafah from two directions. They were joined by special forces, including engineering units with dogs trained to uncover tunnels. A gun battle erupted between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen, but there was no report of casualties.

Residents said the Israelis destroyed three houses near the border and fired machine guns to drive families away from others. Explosions could be heard, possibly Israelis destroying tunnels, or militants throwing explosives at tanks, they said.

A military commander at the scene said weapons smuggled in from Egypt to Gaza eventually made their way to the West Bank, so “we had no choice but to strike deep against the tunnels”.

Israeli military officials said Israel had intelligence warnings that Palestinians were planning to use tunnels under the border to smuggle in weapons that could have a strategic impact on the three-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the Egyptians were not taking steps to stop them.

The officials said Palestinians were attempting to acquire missiles that could knock out tanks and aircraft, weapons they have not used up to now. These would include Stinger shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles that could shoot down the attack helicopters Israel often uses in operations in Gaza, the sources said. Stinger missiles could also threaten Israeli warplanes or civilian aircraft flying close to Gaza.

Also, they said, the Palestinians were trying to smuggle Katyusha rockets, which would have the range to hit Israeli cities near Gaza. During the conflict, the Palestinians have been aiming home-made mortars and rockets at Israeli towns and settlements.

Israel has mounted dozens of smaller missions during the conflict, including several in recent weeks, aimed at uncovering and destroying the tunnels, turning the Rafah refugee camp into a constant battlefield.

Yesterday, in a heated closed-door meeting at Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Qureia suggested he no longer wanted to be prime minister, just four days after taking office, officials said.

Qureia’s success is key to efforts to salvage the stalled US-backed “road map” peace plan, which outlines a path to ending three years of conflict and a Palestinian state by 2005. Yesterday’s public embarrassment seemed to bode ill for his chances of survival.

As dozens of Palestinian legislators and hundreds of officials waited for nearly an hour and a half for the expected vote on Qureia’s Cabinet, back-door wrangling continued among members of Arafat’s Fatah faction about the size and the make-up of the government.

Unable to agree on whether to confirm the eight-person emergency Cabinet appointed by Arafat on Sunday, the officials abruptly cancelled the vote.

The vote was tentatively rescheduled for tomorrow. Until then, the Cabinet remains a temporary one that officials say can rule for a month only.

Violence continued in the West Bank when, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at an Israeli army base, killing himself and injuring two Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as Ahmed Safadi, an 18-year-old school pupil from the village of Oref, south of Nablus.

Two people, a man and a woman, were killed and 19 people wounded in Rafah by Israeli fire, Palestinians said. They said most of the casualties came when an attack helicopter fired a missile at the camp.