Israeli fire kills 2 Palestinian children in Gaza

Army troops press on with 9-day-old incursion in north

Friday, October 08, 2004

Copyright (c) 2004 The Daily Star

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

GAZA CITY: Three Palestinians, including two children, were killed by Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip Thursday as troops pressed on with a massive nine-day-old incursion in the north, Palestinian medics and the Israeli Army said.

Palestinian doctors identified the two slain children as Sliman Abu Foul and Raed Abu Zeid, both 14, and said their bodies had been ripped apart by what appeared to be a tank shell.

The Israeli Army insisted the two people fired on had been "preparing to fire an improvised rocket."

But witnesses at the scene said that the teenagers had been rummaging through the ruins of a local youth club destroyed by armored bulldozers two days before.

They said they were hit by a tank shell and that no fire or flash had been seen at the scene.

"We were all playing in the ruins of the club because there is nothing else to do, the school is closed. We found water pipes in the wreckage and a tank started firing at us," said Abdullah Zeidan, 14.

"I got scared and moved back, but Raed and Sliman stood there, carrying pipes and the tank fired two shells. The second one tore their bodies to pieces," said another playmate Karam Abu Naji, also 14.

The deaths, including a 17-year-old who died of wounds sustained last week, raised to at least 79 the number of Palestinians killed since Israel launched the offensive eight days ago.

The Arab League expressed its frustration on Thursday at the United States veto of an Arab-sponsored draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council against Israel's operation in Gaza.

"We can't keep count any more of the number of times the Americans have used their veto on behalf of Israel at the Security Council," said Said Kamal, the deputy secretary general for Palestinian Affairs at the Cairo-based pan-Arab organization.

The United States vetoed the draft, which called for the "immediate cessation of all military operations in the area of Northern Gaza and the withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from that area."

In a separate incident, Israeli forces exchanged fire with two armed Palestinians reportedly trying to plant bombs near a Jewish settlement in southern Gaza, killing one of them, the military said. The other escaped.

Palestinian security sources said that Israeli troops in Jabaliya had demolished the Palestinian national security headquarters for the northern Gaza Strip as well as a Palestinian preventative security post.

Palestinians fired two Qassam rockets at Sderot on Thursday, hitting a house but causing no casualties, medics said. The second rocket landed in an open field.

Hamas vowed to continue firing rockets even after a Gaza pullout, calling them "resistance" to Israel's attacks on Palestinians.

Elsewhere in the Occupied Territories, the Israeli Army arrested Ahmed Chalabi, a local official of Islamic Jihad, in the West Bank town of Jenin, the sources said.

In another development, the United Nations said that at least 25 Palestinian UN workers have been detained by Israel for about two years under charges the Jewish state won't reveal.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said Wednesday that "one staffer has been detained in Gaza for over two years and is currently awaiting trial, and 24 are being held under administrative detention without charge or trial."