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Middle East
IDF withdraws from Rafah; UN, Paleos bitch
2003-10-13
U.N. officials said Israel’s three-day military operation in a Gaza Strip refugee camp left 1,240 Palestinians homeless, the largest demolition of houses in a Gaza raid in three years of fighting.
Boo Frigging Hoo
Israeli troops withdrew from the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border Sunday, after a three-day operation the military said was aimed at finding and destroying weapons smuggling tunnels. Three tunnels were shut down. The raid, the biggest in Gaza in six months, was accompanied by heavy fighting between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. Eight Palestinians, including two human shields children, were killed, and dozens were wounded. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which keeps the Paleos in welfare camps cares for refugees, initially said that about 1,500 Palestinians were left homeless in the raid, the largest-scale demolition of houses in a single operation in Gaza in the past three years of fighting. After further checks, the agency revised the number to 1,240.
then to 30 then to 3
"We have had very, very very very very significant damage to the refugee camp," Peter Hansen, the commissioner general of UNRWA, said after inspecting the damage Sunday. "Many houses, maybe as many as 120, have been completely demolished."
maybe as many? how about as little as 3 or 5? kinda loose with numbers Peter
Another 70 houses were damaged, said Saed Zoarub, the mayor of the town of Rafah next to the camp. The area targeted was the camp’s Yabena neighborhood, next to the Gaza-Egypt border. Several of the houses were blown up, while the remainder were razed by army bulldozers. It was the largest-scale demolition in a single raid since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting three years ago. Rafah has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli troops.
because? how about because it is a source of illegal weapons, drugs, prostitution, and killers?
In all, nearly 3,500 houses have been demolished in the Gaza Strip in the past three years, including about 1,200 in Rafah, municipal officials said. The Israeli military said it did not know how many houses were demolished in the latest Rafah raid, but that about 30 of the structures were uninhabited and used as cover by gunmen.
sounds good to me - knock it down with them in it
The military said that other houses were razed because they were sitting atop or near tunnels. Also, some structures were damaged in the fighting, the army said, noting that Palestinians fired grenades and anti-tank missiles and that soldiers returned fire. Palestinians charged that Israel was trying to bury peace efforts with the Rafah raid. "This is a classic war against the Palestinian killer snuffys people," Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said Sunday.
The could have just written that sentence to read "The usual suspects said the usual things."
The raid was part of stepped-up military activity following an Oct. 3 suicide bombing that killed 20 Israelis in a restaurant in the port city of Haifa. Military officials said Palestinians planned to use the tunnels to bring in more advanced weapons, like anti-aircraft missiles, that could have a strategic impact on the conflict.
Fred called that one
Posted by:Frank G

#9  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: .com   2003-10-13 11:25:27 PM  

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Posted by: Igs   2003-10-13 10:40:15 PM  

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Posted by: .com   2003-10-13 10:13:42 PM  

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Posted by: Igs   2003-10-13 9:30:00 PM  

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Posted by: Carl in NH   2003-10-13 5:07:16 PM  

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Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2003-10-13 2:44:31 PM  

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Posted by: Atrus   2003-10-13 1:44:32 PM  

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Posted by: mjh   2003-10-13 1:00:22 PM  

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Posted by: Charles   2003-10-13 12:13:02 PM  

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