MIDDLE EAST:Israel pulled its tanks and troops out of parts of Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip early yesterday, leaving behind a trail of wanton destruction of houses and infrastructure. The Israeli army said a "redeployment" was under way yesterday, the fourth day of its operation in the area in which 42 Palestinians, including children, were killed.
The army said its actions, which have drawn intense international criticism, were aimed at neutralising militants and destroying arms smuggling tunnels dug under the Egypt-Gaza border. Hundreds of people have been left homeless after the demolition of scores of houses in several districts, forcing them to seek temporary shelter in schools and stadiums.
The invasion, named Operation Rainbow, is Israel's biggest Gaza raid in years and follows the killing by Palestinian militants last week of 13 of its soldiers in the Gaza Strip, including seven in the Rafah area.
International pressure on Israel to leave the area mounted after its forces killed 10 Palestinians, including at least three children, at a peaceful protest march in Rafah on Wednesday. Troops said they did not aim at the rally.
In the Tel Sultan neighbourhood yesterday, the army pulled out its armour but continued to cut off access roads to the rest of the camp, and residents reported that there was no electricity or running water.
The army has besieged the district and municipal officials are warning of a humanitarian crisis there. The American-based aid agency Care said it was unable to secure Israeli permission to pass its tank blockade with vital emergency food supplies yesterday.
Meanwhile, the withdrawal of troops from the Brazil neighbourhood revealed significant overnight destruction of infrastructure and houses.
Throughout yesterday, distressed locals picked through large mounds of sand for their belongings buried below large heaps of bulldozed sand.
Roads were ploughed up, water supplies damaged, and trees and power lines buried in the sand. At one junction a shallow crater some 12 metres wide, which was gorged out by a bulldozer, was filled with stagnant water from burst pipes. Some 500 metres in the distance stood an Israeli tank, its cannon facing down the street.
One 30-member extended family said they had been cowering in a room at the rear of their house, screaming for their lives, as an Israeli bulldozer tore through the outer rooms at around 2 a.m. on Friday. They said the soldiers ordered them out before tearing down the house and burying it under deep sand. "Really, it's an earthquake made by human beings," said one family member.
The Israeli army says only five houses had been intentionally demolished since Operation Rainbow began, including one belonging to an Islamic Jihad militant. However, a local UN Relief and Works Agency worker, Mr Khaled Ahsur, said an estimated 40 houses were demolished in the Brazil neighbourhood early on Friday, with 60 more partially demolished.
In Washington, a senior State Department official said Israeli Vice Premier Ehud Olmert had assured the US it would not demolish any more homes in Rafah or widen the adjacent flashpoint buffer zone on the Egyptian frontier.
Israel's Attorney General yesterday instructed the army to recast its plan to expand the Israeli-patrolled buffer area in Rafah to limit the number of Palestinian homes that would be razed, the Israeli media reported.