Israelis pull out of Gaza camp after bloodbath

Israeli troops and tanks began pulling out of the Rafah refugee camp early today, residents said, after a three-day sweep that left 39 Palestinians dead.

It was not immediately clear, however, if the operation was over.

Palestinian security officials said Israeli snipers continued to control buildings, and attack helicopters were in the sky. Doctors said that relief convoys could not yet enter the camp.

Israeli military sources confirmed that soldiers were ”redeploying” after the operation in the Gaza camp, but they said that in principle, the search for weapons-smuggling tunnels under the border would continue.

A senior Israeli member of parliament warned yesterday that long-range rockets and anti-aircraft missiles might already have been smuggled into the Rafah area, and Israeli troops had to find them before they could be transferred to northern Gaza, in range of Israel.

However, withering international criticism may have had an effect on the Israeli leadership, especially pointed US displeasure underlined by the US abstention on a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the Israeli operation.

Palestinians said the Israeli tanks left the Tel Sultan neighbourhood, the focus of the operation, and hundreds of residents rushed into the streets to inspect the damage caused during the Israeli operation.

But Israeli forces opened fire and leaders urged people to remain indoors, a local doctor said.

Abdel Rahim Abu Jazer, 42, a teacher, said the Israelis left destruction in their wake. “I hardly recognised my own street,” he said, as he searched for food and water for his children. “I don’t think an earthquake could do what the Israeli army did to this area.”

Tanks were also pulling out of the Brazil section next to the Gaza-Egypt border, residents and Palestinian security officials said, but they said it might be a manoeuvre or a change-over of forces, and not a pullout.

Witnesses described widespread destruction, saying dozens of houses and the main road were damaged.

The border area is the key to the Israeli operation, aimed at finding and destroying tunnels used by the Palestinians to smuggle weapons from Egypt.

During more than three years of Palestinian-Israeli violence, Israeli forces have made dozens of forays into the camp to look for tunnels. The Israeli military said 90 were found and destroyed.

The military sources said that Israeli forces were leaving the camp, but the hunt for the tunnels would continue.

Although the tunnels have been known to exist for more than 20 years, Israeli officials say the weapons smuggling situation has reached a crisis point.

Israel says Palestinian militants have weapons stockpiled in the Egyptian Sinai desert across from Gaza, waiting to be smuggled in. Egypt denies the claims.

Criticism has come not only from the United Nations, European and Arab states, but also from the United States, up to now supportive of Israel’s moves against Palestinian militants.

Eight Palestinians were killed yesterday when helicopters and tanks targeted groups of militants.

One of the dead was a local Hamas leader who was about to plant explosives when he was killed in a missile strike.

In all, 39 Palestinians were killed during the operation, including 10 who died when an Israeli tank shell exploded on Wednesday in a crowd of demonstrators.

Israel raided the refugee camp less than a week after Palestinian militants killed 13 soldiers in Gaza, seven of them along the Egyptian border.

In the West Bank, troops shot dead three Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy and a local Hamas leader, in separate clashes. In the incident involving the boy, the army said soldiers opened fire at someone throwing a firebomb.

Yesterday, an Israeli court found popular West Bank leader Marwan Barghouti guilty in terror attacks that killed five people, and the prosecution said it would ask for consecutive life sentences.

Barghouti, mentioned as a possible successor to Yasser Arafat, is the highest-ranking Palestinian leader in Israeli custody. Barghouti said he did not recognise the right of the Israeli court to judge him.

He will be sentenced on June 6.