Israeli trooops find attack tunnel in Gaza

Israeli soldiers searching for tunnels and explosives withdrew from the outskirts of Gaza City today, the army said, ending a five-day operation that Palestinians said left 20 people dead, and heavily damaged houses, streets and farmlands.

The army released footage and photos yesterday of what it described as a tunnel dug by militants from the Shajaiyeh neighbourhood to the Karni crossing, the main cargo passage between Gaza and Israel.

The tunnel, which was 13 meters deep and 150 meters long and reinforced with wooden beams, was to be used to attack Israeli soldiers at the crossing, the army said.

Fifteen militants and five civilians died in the airstrikes and gunbattles that began late on Saturday in Shajaiyeh, Palestinian hospital officials said today. Rescue personnel said they found the lower half of a Palestinian man’s body in a field, but didn’t immediately know whether he was an additional casualty or a previously reported one.

After the last troops withdrew shortly after dawn, hundreds of people poured out of homes in Shajaiyeh and nearby neighbourhoods to inspect the damage the army left behind. Tanks and bulldozers rumbling through the narrow streets of the neighbourhood had pulled off the facades of houses and rutted streets. Many houses were riddled by hundreds of bullets fired by the tanks’ machine guns.

Water and sewage pipes were burst, and electrical lines were torn down.

Farmers touring their lands found uprooted olive groves and destroyed chicken coops and cowsheds.

Ziad Sarsak, 29, who lost a cousin and an olive grove in the operation, said several houses belonging to his family, including his own, were badly damaged by shrapnel from tanks and bulldozers.

“They prevented us from leaving to look for water or food,” Sarsak said. “They destroyed all means of life, and uprooted trees that are older than they are.

“Look around, it’s like an earthquake or a mad cow run amok in the neighbourhood,” he said. “I used to question why fighters are fighting Israel, but I think this time, I’m going to support their fight, because they are right and I was wrong.”

Teams from the telephone company and municipality were out estimating damage and making repairs to streets and damaged water, sewage and electrical lines.

Separately, an army force raided the West Bank city of Nablus this morning and killed a militant leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a violent group allied with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party, witnesses said.

The Israeli force entered the Old City of Nablus after 2am and ambushed a group of fighters, killing the leader, Fadi Kafishe, and wounding six other people in a gunbattle, witnesses said.

The army said it was on a routine operation in Nablus when militants fired at the troops, who returned fire and identified hitting one person.