Death of Palestinian girl, 3, pushes incursion toll past 40

JERUSALEM – A 3-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead near her home in the Rafah refugee camp on Saturday, according to medical officials, pushing the Palestinian fatality toll during a 5-day-old Israeli military offensive above 40.

The Israeli army said it was investigating the incident, which came amid the biggest strike into the Gaza Strip in 44 months of conflict.

An army spokeswoman said she knew of no exchange of fire in the area at the time the child was shot, but a United Nations delegation nearby reported hearing a burst of shots that seemed to come from the direction of several Israeli military vehicles.

Occasional gunfire echoed through the streets for much of the day. Some camp residents who ventured out to shop after being confined to their homes for days waved white cloths, and scurried for cover when they heard shooting.

Violence in Gaza has risen dramatically over the past two months as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has sought to marshal support for his initiative to withdraw Jewish settlers and soldiers from the seaside territory.

Each side appears determined to bloody the other as much as possible in advance of any pullout, so as not to appear to be the vanquished party, and that has set up a dynamic of escalating and self-perpetuating confrontations.

The Rafah incursion came on the heels of a week in which Israel lost 13 soldiers in Gaza, the worst one-week toll it has suffered in the enclave.

Israel insists any withdrawal will be preceded by heavy blows aimed at the infrastructure of the Palestinian militant groups that make Gaza their base.

Israeli forces have killed, arrested or driven underground most of the leadership echelon of Hamas, the largest of the militant organizations, but military officials say the tunnels that run beneath the Egyptian border at Rafah remain a major threat, because they are being used to ferry in all manner of weaponry.

Although Israeli forces pulled back from two neighborhoods of the Rafah camp on Friday, troops backed by tanks continued hunting for wanted Palestinian militants and tunnels. One tunnel was found Saturday, the army announced – the first found since the offensive began Tuesday.

Israel has come under a barrage of international criticism over the Rafah incursion, including a U.N. Security Council resolution. On Saturday, a senior U.N. official who toured a rubble-strewn street in the camp called the scope of destruction “completely, completely unacceptable.”

Peter Hansen, who heads the Relief and Works Agency that administers refugee camps in the region, also denounced the Israel’s demolition of homes in the camp and the extreme risk to civilians caught in fighting.

Dozens of buildings were damaged or destroyed during battles that raged in the camp’s squalid streets on Wednesday and Thursday. Hansen said 1,650 Palestinians had been left homeless in the past two weeks.

In some wrecked homes in the Brazil neighborhood, people tried Saturday to salvage belongings, picking through chunks of shattered concrete in search of clothing, cooking pots and mattresses.

“We were here when they started to tear down the house with us inside,” said Ijmaa Abu Arar, a 32-old mother of 11. “We tried to climb the wall to the neighbor’s house. We were stuck for three days in the one room they did not destroy.”

Hundreds of Palestinians whose homes were demolished are sheltering in mosques and schools in and around the camp. “We escaped with only our clothes,” said Iyad Abu Tayour, 28, who has an extended family of 18 people. “We don’t have anything.”

The child who was killed Saturday was identified by hospital officials as Radwan Abu Zeid. Her family told journalists the little girl was tagging along with a group of older children on their way to the store to buy candy at midmorning when she was shot in the head and neck.

Israel insists that nearly all of the 41 Palestinians killed during its incursion have been combatants. Palestinian medical officials say at least a dozen of the dead were children.

There has not been a suicide bombing inside Israel since March 10, when a double bombing at the Israeli port of Ashdod killed 10 people. Israel says it has foiled dozens of bomb plots since then.