Eleven Palestinians were wounded in clashes with occupation troops early Tuesday following an Israeli incursion into the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, which is ostensibly under full Palestinian control, reported Al Jazeera satellite channel.
Reports said that Israeli armored vehicles went as deep as 100 meters inside the camp, prompting clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.
Three Israeli soldiers were wounded in the exchange of fire, said Haaretz newspaper.
Using mosque loudspeakers, leaders called people out to defend the camp, and Palestinians opened fire on the Israeli forces, said the AP.
The Israelis withdrew after several hours, said AP.
Reports differed on the number of Palestinian houses destroyed by the Israeli troops.
Al Jazeera satellite channel reported that 18 Palestinian houses and eight shops were destroyed during the raid.
But AFP said that only one house was bulldozed, Haaretz newspaper reported three, while the Associated Press said that ten Palestinian houses were destroyed.
The head of security in the Gaza Strip, General Abdel Razak Al Majaydeh, told AFP: "It is an unacceptable new escalation by Israel."
The development came after a day in which an Israeli army officer was killed and a Hamas bomber blew himself up. Tensions were heightened as clashes erupted over Israel's demolition of more than a dozen homes in a Palestinian refugee camp in occupied east Jerusalem, an action the Palestinians branded a "provocation."
The latest incursion came hours after Israeli bulldozers leveled the 13 Palestinian homes, one of the largest such operations in years.
The actions further shook the June 13 truce, which had led to a reduction in the unrest but never fully took hold. Earlier, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had pledged again to stop Palestinian attacks, but then a suicide bomber struck in Gaza.
Nighttime raids on Palestinian positions and neighborhoods in Gaza were frequent before the ceasefire negotiated by CIA director George Tenet.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told a political party meeting that on Saturday night, Arafat called his leadership together and pledged to make a serious effort to prevent attacks against Israel, informing both Israel and the United States of the decision, said Haaretz.
Palestinian officials, requesting anonymity, said that Arafat spoke of making arrests and preventing Palestinian activists from entering Israel, as part of implementing the ceasefire.
But Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, on a visit to Turkey, told reporters that Israel was still waiting for Arafat to stop the “violence,” Haaretz quoted him as saying.
"We have no intention whatsoever to get back to the table as long as the terror struggle continues. No!" he said at a press conference.
Also, in a phone call late Monday to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for “constant international pressure ... to bring about the end of Palestinian terror, violence and incitement,” Sharon's office said.
Sharon is insisting on seven days of total calm before starting a process that is to lead to renewal of peace negotiations.
US diplomats say a “100 percent effort by Arafat to stop the violence would be enough,” but US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday, “Frankly, we're still looking for that.”
In a Washington briefing, Boucher also criticized Israel's destruction of the unfinished houses on Monday, said the AP.
“Actions such as these are provocative and undermine relations between the parties and can only make more difficult efforts to restore calm.”
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, CNN reports that Palestinians have killed over 112 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and over 458 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to Amnesty International, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children.
In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded, and over 520 killed.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
