The Israeli military on Tuesday destroyed 30 homes and the remains of a mosque in a Gaza Strip refugee camp on the Egyptian border, according to Palestinian witnesses.
Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses said that Israeli forces invaded the Yebna refugee camp, Bawabat Salaheddin and Al Barahma areas in Rafah City, escorted by several military D-9 bulldozers. Those in the targeted homes hastily gathered their belongings, and some raised white flags to avoid being hit by tank fire, witnesses said.
The witnesses added that the bulldozers started tearing down a number of houses in these areas, after Israeli soldiers forced the owners of these houses to leave.
Officials at Rafah's Abu Yousif Al Najjar hospital told IPC that at least 10 wounded Palestinians arrived at the hospital, with different scales of injuries, mostly resulting from random bullets and shrapnel fired by the Israeli forces.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces launched a large scale arrest campaign early Tuesday morning. A total of 24 Palestinians from the Ramallah and ElBireh governorate, seven from the town of Beit Soreef in Bethlehem governorate, three from Nablus governorate and one from Jenin, were arrested.
Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers used tear gas grenades to disperse a crowd of Palestinian workers who were trying to cross from Gaza into Israel through the Erez border crossing, Palestinian witnesses said.
Twenty workers suffering from tear-gas inhalation were hospitalized along with two others who each sustained a broken limb during the incident, medical sources said.
The incident took place when the workers, all of whom were trying to cross into Israel before the terminal closed at 8:30 am (local time), started rushing towards the terminal building where the Israeli army carries out routine identity checks.
Unnerved by a recent suicide attack on the terminal by a Hamas female bomber which left four dead, the soldiers threw tear gas grenades towards the crowd to break it up. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
