Civilians die in attacks

U.S. forces killed more than 40 civilians in a predawn attack on an Iraqi village Wednesday, striking what Iraqi witnesses said was a wedding celebration but U.S. officials called a way station for foreign infiltrators.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers fired multiple tank shells and at least one air-to-ground missile at several thousand Palestinian demonstrators gathered to protest a massive Israeli military incursion in Rafah in Gaza. At least 10 people were killed, including children and teens, and 45 wounded.

The strike, captured in dramatic television footage, provoked unusual criticism from the Bush administration, anger throughout the Arab world and condemnation from European leaders. British Prime Minister Tony Blair called Israel’s 2-day-old military offensive in the Rafah refugee camp “unacceptable and wrong.”

The incident drew a rare rebuke from the United States, which allowed a U.N. Security Council resolution denouncing Israeli operations in Gaza to pass without a veto. It was the first time the United States had let a resolution criticizing Israel pass since September 2002.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said the growing international condemnation would not deter Israel from pressing ahead with its offensive in the camp to hunt down militants and destroy arms-smuggling tunnels.

Late Wednesday, three Palestinian militants were killed in a missile strike in the Rafah camp, doctors said. The military said a helicopter fired at gunmen approaching Israeli forces.

In a statement concerning the disputed U.S. attack on the village of Makr al-Deeb in western Iraq, the U.S. military said that American forces came under fire during an operation at 3 a.m. Ground troops moved against a suspected safe house used by foreign fighters when they were fired on, the statement said. A Defense Department official said U.S. warplanes provided close air support.

In the aftermath, U.S. soldiers found “numerous weapons,” large amounts of Iraqi and Syrian currency, foreign passports and a two-way satellite radio, the statement said. U.S. officials suggested that the village, 16 miles east of the Syrian border, had been a focus of intelligence efforts for some time.

Lt. Col. Ziyad Jabouri, the deputy police chief of the city of Ramadi, told the Associated Press that between 42 and 45 people died, including 15 children and 10 women.

Video footage from the scene showed fresh graves and the corpses of several children. A man in a red-and-white head scarf told the Associated Press Television Network: “The planes came in and shot the whole family. They kept shooting until the morning, until they destroyed all the houses. They didn’t leave anything.”

Villagers shown on the video broadcasts said the attack came during a wedding celebration.

Among the first U.S. military decrees following the April 2003 fall of Baghdad was a prohibition on celebratory gunfire, an age-old custom in tribal areas across the Middle East and Central Asia. The sight of tracer bullets streaking through the night sky can lead U.S. forces to believe they are under attack.

But few Iraqis heeded the new rule. Celebratory fire rang out over Baghdad last week after the Iraqi national soccer team qualified for the 2004 Olympics.

In July 2002, 48 people were killed and 117 others were wounded after U.S. warplanes flying over Afghanistan bombed and strafed the village of Miandao and three nearby villages in Uruzgan province during a wedding party. U.S. officials, while expressing condolences to the victims, said they were responding to hostile ground fire.

Palestinians claimed Wednesday’s shooting was unprovoked. An Israeli spokesman said soldiers opened fire after a group of armed demonstrators began moving toward Israeli tanks. But neither the tank shells nor the missile was aimed at the demonstrators, the spokesman said.

“It is possible that the casualties were a result of the tank fire at the abandoned structure,” said spokesman Capt. Jacob Dalal, referring to a building near the demonstrators.

Dalal said the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force was investigating.

“I want to express our deep sorrow,” Dalal said. “It is a terrible, tragic incident and we will take all precautions that it won’t happen again.”

Israeli army chief Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon said troops did not deliberately fire on marchers.

“No commander or soldier gave an order or got an order or deliberately aimed at civilians, and we’re sorry that innocent civilians got hit. We don’t aim at Palestinian civilians,” Yaalon said.

The Israeli offensive into Rafah, called “Operation Rainbow in a Cloud,” was launched Tuesday to destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels dug under the Egyptian-Gaza border and root out Palestinian militants blamed for the deaths of 13 Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

At least 19 Palestinians died in Tuesday’s fighting, most of them members of militant organizations, but at least two of the dead were teenagers who bled to death in their home as their parents cried for help.

Four people, including an unarmed 14-year-old boy, were killed in the Tel al Sultan neighborhood overnight.

Wednesday’s demonstration began peacefully, with a crowd gathering near the main Rafah mosque at about 1 p.m. to protest the continuing Israeli siege of the Tel al Sultan neighborhood.

In sharp contrast to most such gatherings in Gaza, where guns are common, few weapons were in evidence as the demonstration began. A Washington Post reporter saw two people carrying rifles – a miniscule number for a Gaza gathering.

The shooting began at about 2 p.m., but it wasn’t clear how the incident unfolded. Dozens of Palestinian witnesses said about 50 protesters had surged forward, while others held back because of Israeli tanks ahead.

The witnesses said the shooting and shelling appeared aimed at the group of 50. At least two large explosions were reported among the demonstrators, who were injured and killed by shrapnel.

The army said Israeli soldiers fired about four tank shells at an abandoned building, which blocked their view of protesters who were passing on the other side at that very moment. At least one of the shells tore through the building and hit the crowd. Israeli forces also fired a missile and machine guns but said nobody was hurt as a result.

Associated Press Television News footage showed smoke and debris flying, followed by Palestinians carrying away the wounded, including several children with bloodstained faces.

“Children lost their arms, and the wounded were lying down on the ground,” said one demonstrator, Said Zourob, 20.

“Now I wish the whole demonstration had never happened,” he lamented, standing in front of a makeshift morgue inside a cold storage room used for carnations shipped to Israel and then exported to the West.