MIDDLE EAST Israeli raid takes its toll on lives and utilities
Foreign officials condemned the offensive, which Israel says is aimed at militants.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Israeli troops stormed homes in this Palestinian refugee camp in an ongoing search for militants and illegal weapons, confining tens of thousands of residents to houses without electricity or water.
The invasion, launched Tuesday, knocked out power in the Rafah refugee camp, home to an estimated 90,000 people, local Palestinian officials said. By today, they said, water service had been halted as well.
Twenty Palestinians -- the highest single-day death toll in more than two years -- were killed on the first day of the army's "Operation Rainbow" offensive. Among the dead were a 13-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister.
International condemnation mounted against the operation, and the United States said it was asking Israel for "clarification." The United Nations and European Union demanded an end to the incursion, which Israeli security officials said would last at least a week.
The massive invasion -- the largest in the Gaza Strip in years -- came less than a week after Palestinian militants killed 13 soldiers -- seven in the Rafah area.
Israel said it was targeting armed militants, but Palestinians said many of Tuesday's casualties were civilians.
Differing accounts
Palestinians said the teenage brother and sister were killed by an Israeli sniper as they gathered laundry from their rooftop.
But the military said an initial investigation found no Israeli soldiers had fired in that area at the time of the shootings. The military said the two had apparently been killed by a Palestinian bomb aimed at troops.
Early today, the army said it demolished the home of Ibrahim Ahmed, an Islamic Jihad militant it said was responsible for a shooting attack earlier this month that killed a pregnant Israeli woman and her four daughters near a Gaza settlement. Palestinian witnesses said at least three homes were demolished overnight.
Ali Bayomi, a 55-year-old resident of Rafah, said soldiers disguised as Hamas militants had arrested two of his cousins and were using the men as human shields as they conducted searches of homes. The army did not comment.
Salwa Abu Jazar, a 33-year-old mother of four, said the noise from combat helicopters and shooting kept her family up much of the night.
"There is no water, no electricity, and it is very hard to move inside the house using candles because snipers in the building next door will shoot you," Abu Jazar said.
The army said it had shot and hit two armed men overnight in Rafah. Palestinian residents said one man had been hit in the head and stomach, the other in the leg. They said the intense fighting was making it hard for ambulances to evacuate the dead and wounded.
Assessing the damage
The fa & ccedil;ades of Rafah buildings were riddled with holes from Israeli machine guns. Residents said the gun and rocket fire had confined them to the innermost rooms of their homes.
Saleem Katib, 25, said his ailing, elderly father went to morning prayers early Tuesday and still had not returned. Trapped by the fighting and the military curfew, the man was holed up near the mosque with other worshippers, his son said.
"How can you believe that a man can't reach his home when he is only 20 meters [66 feet] away?" Katib said.
In all, 19 Palestinians were killed Tuesday -- 10 in two separate missile strikes and nine by machine-gun fire, according to Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, a senior official for the Palestinian Health Ministry. A 20th man was killed while handling explosives.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat denounced the incursion as a "planned massacre."
"What is happening in Rafah is an operation to destroy and to transfer the local Palestinian population, and this must not be accepted, not by the Palestinians, nor the Arabs, nor by the international community," an angry Arafat told reporters at his West Bank compound.