GAZA STRIP — Eleven Palestinians, including a 60-year-old man, were killed and at least 100 wounded on March 6 in a renewed Israeli military onslaught on the Jabaliya refugee camp. The camp was invaded by Israeli occupation forces at dawn.
The deadly invasion, carried out by dozens of tanks, armoured vehicles and two US-supplied Apache gunships, came a few days after the Israeli army killed eight Palestinians, including a pregnant woman and two teenagers, in al Bureij refugee camp, also in the Gaza Strip.
Between February 1 and March 3, Israeli forces killed 82 Palestinians, including 16 children and many women and old people. Most of those killed were in poverty-stricken refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, most notably al Bureij and Jabaliya.
Palestinian security sources said an Israeli tank shell slammed into a crowd trying to hose down a commercial building set ablaze during the attack, killing eight of them. Israeli troops also fired heavy machine guns, they added.
Dr Moawia Hassanein, chief of emergency services at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, described the killings as "a new massacre committed against the citizens of Jabaliya". A Reuters TV camera operator and photographer were also injured as shrapnel from the shell blasts sprayed into the crowd, he added.
Palestinian National Authority minister Saeb Erekat condemned the Israeli raid on Jabaliya as the "Israeli government's revenge" for a Haifa suicide bombing on March 6, which claimed the lives of 15 Israelis.
Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Ron Prosor claimed the attack was part of an ongoing campaign to stop "terrorism". "The operation in Jabaliya was not revenge for what happened in Haifa", he said.
The Israeli forces also cut electricity supplies north of the Gaza Strip, including to Beit Lahia, Jabaliya and Beit Hanoun. At least three houses were dynamited by Israeli troops during the invasion. They also opened fire on ambulances, rescue workers and firefighters, injuring several.
In the West Bank city of Bethlehem on March 6, Israeli forces murdered a 26-year-old Palestinian after detaining him. Mohammad al Asas was shot in the head while handcuffed, relatives said.
In Ramallah, another West Bank city, witnesses said that an eight-year-old Palestinian boy and his older brother and sister were wounded late on March 5 by Israeli gunfire. Walid Jabr was seriously hurt after plastic-coated steel bullets fired by Israeli soldiers hit him in the head as he was playing with his siblings outside their house in Dura al Qara village.
[Abridged from a Palestine Media Centre report.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, March 12, 2003.
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