Thousands flee as Israeli tanks roll in

Thousands of Palestinians fled Rafah refugee camp as Israeli tanks cut off the area from the rest of the Gaza Strip today in preparation for what is expected to be a major Israeli military offensive.

Frantic Rafah residents loaded belongings on trucks and donkey carts, and headed to the neighbouring town of the same name – the only avenue of escape. Women balanced mattresses on their heads, children carried blankets.

The exodus came after Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the military could keep razing houses to protect soldiers’ lives, and after Israel’s army chief said hundreds more homes in Rafah were marked for demolition.

Since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2000, Israel has demolished or damaged nearly 2,000 houses in Rafah, making more than 11,000 people homeless.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved the Gaza offensive, after 13 Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza fighting last week. At the same time, Sharon says he is still pushing for an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Rafah is being targeted because it abuts a narrow Israeli buffer zone between Gaza and the Egyptian border. Palestinian militants have been digging tunnels under the road to smuggle weapons from Egypt into the camp.

A senior Israeli government official said that the Palestinians, aided by Islamic militant groups abroad, are making a major push to smuggle weapons into Gaza.

“We have to take measures now to stop entire Gaza Strip from becoming major arsenal of rockets,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The official said Israel was trying to stop the flow of weapons ahead of an eventual withdrawal. He brushed aside US criticism of house demolitions, saying the army had no choice and that the practice was sanctioned by Israel’s Supreme Court.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that Washington opposes the house demolitions. “We don’t think that is productive,” he said. International human rights groups have said the practice amounts to collective punishment.

Yuval Dvir, an Israeli reserve colonel who oversaw the creation of the buffer zone in the 1980s, said Israel must leave Gaza now, and that the plan to widen the road was “foolish” and would not enhance Israeli security. “We are following our guts and not our brains,” he told Israel Army Radio.

Also today, helicopters fired five missiles into an office run by Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement in Gaza City, witnesses said. No one was hurt in the attack.

Israeli troops last night killed three Palestinians trying to plant a bomb on the border fence between Israel and Gaza. The military said soldiers fired at suspicious figures, and explosives they were carrying detonated, killing them.