Israeli offensive wrecks town

Israeli tanks and bulldozers pulled back from the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya today after tearing up roads, flattening strawberry greenhouses and knocking down walls of dozens of houses in what residents said was the most devastating raid in four years of fighting.

The two-day foray into the town was part of a major Israeli military offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, now in its third week.

As part of the latest fighting, five Palestinian militants and an elderly civilian were killed in three separate missile strikes, overnight.

Since the start of the campaign, triggered by a deadly Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli town, 105 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire, including dozens of militants and 18 children under the age of 16.

Armoured vehicles pulled back to the outskirts of Beit Lahiya after a two-day operation that left a wide path of destruction. The demolitions focused on outlying farms and town centre.

The army said the goal of the raid was to prevent militants from launching rockets, and that trees, farm buildings and other structures were destroyed to deprive them of cover. With tanks moving through narrow alleys, some of the destruction was unintentional, it said.

Dozens of houses in Beit Lahiya were badly damaged and no longer safe to live in. Armoured vehicles tore up roads, destroyed water and sewage pipes and knocked down electricity poles.

Palestinian author Omar Khalil Omar, a Beit Lahiya resident, said two houses belonging to his extended family were damaged, and two cars crushed. He said his mother’s grave, on a family plot near his home, was torn up.

“I don’t know what threat my mother’s grave could pose to the state of Israel,” Omar said. “They (the Israelis) simply want to uproot us from here, whether we are alive or dead. But the grave will stay and we will stay.”

Beit Lahiya has been raided by the army in the past, but residents said the destruction they found today was far worse than in previous incursions.

For many of the 30,000 residents, the loss of olive trees hurt most.

“My father planted this farm when he was a child,” said farmer Salim Omar, 70, holding a broken olive branch near his 450 uprooted trees. “Why did they do this? It’s a holy tree, mentioned in our holy book and their book as well. I wish I had died before I saw this.”

As part of the fighting, five Palestinian militants and a 70-year-old man were killed in three separate missile strikes, starting late Wednesday.

The first two air strikes hit the Jebaliya refugee camp, killing three Hamas militants. The Israeli military said in both cases, pilots targeted militants planting explosives.

In the southern Gaza Strip, about 20 Israeli tanks moved into the Rafah refugee camp on the Egyptian border. Bulldozers destroyed at least 32 homes and about 300 Palestinians were made homeless, UN aid officials said.

During Thursday’s operation, helicopters fired missiles at Rafah, killing two militants and an elderly man, hospital officials said. Seven Palestinians were wounded.