The Israeli army said tank fire aimed at driving back protesters in the Gaza Strip may have been responsible for accidentally killing at least ten Palestinians in Rafah today and this evening there are reports of more missile strikes in the area.
An Israeli helicopter gunship fired two missiles into the Brazil area of the Rafah refugee camp as tank and armoured bulldozers made a late-night incursion. Israeli military sources said the helicopter fired into an open area to drive back gunmen who had shot at army forces. There was no immediate word of casualties.
Earlier, medics said at least ten Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Rafah refugee camp, which has been besieged by the army for two days.
A Palestinian man cries as he carries an injured boy away from today's Israeli missile attack
However, Israeli media reported seeing 22 bodies, many of them children. At least 50 people were injured in the incident, many of them seriously.
An estimated 3,000 demonstrators - apparently almost all civilians - were marching from the town of Rafah toward the neighbouring refugee camp against the Israeli invasion of the nearby Tel Sultan neighbourhood when tanks and helicopters fired at least four shells and four missiles. Wounded were evacuated by ambulance, private cars and donkey carts to the nearby hospital.
The Israeli army has conceded that tank fire may have accidentally killed the marchers, but has dismissed allegations the demonstrators were deliberately targeted. "The claim that this was a case of deliberate fire is false and I reject it completely," chief military spokeswoman Brigadier Ruth Yaron told Israel's Army Radio.
The army said in a statement that Israeli forces fired warning shots to push back the protesters - first a helicopter missile directed well away from the crowd, then machinegun fire and tank shells at an abandoned building. "It is possible that the casualties were a result of the tank fire on the abandoned structure. The details of the incident continue to be investigated," the statement said.
Israeli forces invaded the Tel Sultan neighbourhood of the Rafah refugee camp early yesterday. Twenty-four Palestinians were killed during the army's Operation Rainbow aimed at hunting down militants and destroying arms-smuggling tunnels.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said the attack was "a terrorist massacre and a terrorist war crime." He said the Palestinians were considering bringing their grievances before an international criminal court.
The Rafah assault also drew UN and European Union condemnation given Israeli threats to destroy hundreds of Palestinian homes there. Thousands of Palestinian houses have been razed since an uprising began in 2000, UN figures show.
Military officials said there were no plans for any systematic demolition during what it called an open-ended operation to stop arms smuggling through tunnels from Egypt.
The army said its forces destroyed the house of a militant who killed a pregnant settler and her four daughters in a May 2nd ambush in Gaza. The attack contributed to the rejection of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout plan in a vote by his own rightist party.
Before the raid, thousands of Palestinians loaded bedding, furniture and clothes on donkey carts and rickety trucks and fled, fearing their houses were earmarked for demolition.
The latest deaths bring the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian intifada to 4,072, including 3,087 Palestinians and 918 Israelis.
Agencies