MIDDLE EAST: After a bloody week, Israeli troops have largely withdrawn from Gaza, renewing calls for a permanent withdrawal from the enclave. Nuala Haughey reports from Gaza City.
Even by Gazan standards, this week's death toll was high. At least 27 Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids near Gaza city and in Rafah at the southern tip of the strip since last Tuesday, including armed men, civilians and children.
Two Israeli soldiers were shot dead in a Gaza refugee camp last night while eleven soldiers were killed in two separate ambushes on Tuesday and Wednesday, their body parts scattered across the dusty terrain.
Clashes continued in Rafah yesterday amid reports of the deaths of a further two Israeli soldiers and one Palestinian. Further north, residents of the old Gaza city neighbourhood of Zeitoun were solemnly surveying their homes and businesses damaged during the earlier incursions.
Several buildings along Zeitoun's Saladin Street - the strip's main north-south artery - were collapsed while many still standing were peppered with bullet holes. Phone lines there had been cut, water pipes destroyed, cars crushed or burnt out where they were parked. Tanks had gouged up the asphalt on long stretches of the road and large metal lamp-posts lay in the churned up dirt like broken matchsticks.
Outside the concrete rubble of their collapsed house, the Ashour family had perched two beige canvas tents hastily supplied by the Red Cross. Head of the family of nine children, Hassan (53) was still distressed from the sudden loss.
Mr Ashour said Israeli troops occupied his five-storey home for three days before ordering the family to leave on the count of 10 on Thursday, and then blowing it up. Troops also destroyed his taxi, his chief source of income, he said. He said none of his sons were militants and he was given no explanation for the destruction of his home, which did not house any weapons workshops.
"For years I've been telling myself it's okay, I can handle it," he said tearfully, standing outside the tents near a shallow pool of seeping sewage. "I thought I could stay in my home and work as a taxi driver to earn money to feed my family. I have 13 people depending on me, two wives and nine children. Until now I can't really believe what happened. It's like I'm asleep. It's a nightmare."
This week's raid on Zeitoun started as a routine night-time operation to destroy weapons workshops where Israel says Palestinian militants manufacture Qassam rockets to fire at Jewish settlements in the strip or adjacent neighbourhoods inside Israel.
But the mission went awry at around 6.30 a.m. on Tuesday when a roadside bomb blew up an explosives-laden armoured vehicle with six soldiers from an engineering company on board.
The army remained in the area until Thursday while it tried to recover the soldiers' body parts, some of which were seized and paraded in public by militants, who briefly sought to use them to bargain in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners. The fighting over the following two days amounted to the largest offensive in the area in years.
A few doors down Saladin Street at a mini-market which was also damaged during the incursion, Ashraf Hana (27) described the climactic joy felt by locals at the death of the six soldiers, an occasion they celebrated by distributing sweets to children.
"I was very happy. Yes, we got damaged. Yes, all these homes were damaged but we feel satisfaction. We are suffering from the Israelis for years. They invaded and there is no reason for this invasion so they got hit and this is happiness for me."
Inside Israel, this week's army casualties renewed debate over the Jewish state's continuing presence in Gaza, where 7,500 settlers live alongside 1.3 million stateless Palestinians. Opinion polls consistently show that a majority of Israelis are in favour of a permanent pull-out, but the ruling right wing Likud Party in recent weeks rejected Premier Aerial Sharon's unilateral proposal to disengage from Gaza while strengthening Israel's grip on the West Bank.
At one of many funeral tents set up the Zeitun neighbourhood to mourn the latest batch of "martyrs" killed in this week's clashes, a thick slice of a side panel blasted from a reinforced vehicle was proudly displayed in honour of the deceased, Fawzi Madhoon (32). Tied to the thick piece of metal was a shard of a military boot.
"It's a symbol of resistance," explained Fawzi's uncle Mohammed, seated beneath the shade of the green-and-white striped awning. "We believe that a thing that has been taken by force cannot be regained but by force. We believe that this will create pressure on the Israeli government to pull out."