Israel's attacks in Gaza justified - Minister

Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip are justified and will continue, Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said today, as his soldiers searched for body parts of five comrades killed in the second of two armoured vehicles blown up in Palestinian attacks.

The armoured personnel carrier exploded when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as soldiers worked to destroy a tunnel used by Palestinians to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza.

Mofaz said if Israel stopped its efforts to halt the smuggling, “we will find these weapons used … inside Israel.”

“We will continue offensive operations,” Mofaz said, adding that ground operations would be ordered only if targets could not be isolated from the air.

An Israeli helicopter fired five missiles at a crowd of people in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip today, killing 11 people and wounding 29 others.

The army said it had fired at armed militants in the Rafah camp.

Israel was operating in the area, near the Gaza border with Egypt, following the attack on the Israeli armoured vehicle yesterday.

Hundreds of Israeli troops had fanned out along the Egyptian border to search for remains of the five.

In three days of rapidly escalating violence, 11 Israeli soldiers and 26 Palestinians have been killed. At least 235 Palestinians have been wounded.

Earlier today, Israeli forces pulled out of Gaza City following the biggest offensive in the area in years.

The military said it had completed its search for body parts from six soldiers killed in an earlier bombing, a huge explosion that destroyed an armoured vehicle on Tuesday.

The army left behind a swathe of destruction in Gaza City: one high-rise building demolished, two others rendered uninhabitable, walls collapsed from explosions, hundreds of trees uprooted, Gaza's main road rendered impassable for two miles.