From: Joe Dees (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Fri May 21 2004 - 00:24:11 MDT
Palestinians Sent Children Into War Zone 'Without Batting An Eye'
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200405\FOR20040520d.html
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - An Israeli minister is asking what Palestinian children were doing out in the middle of the street in a war zone, where they could -- and did -- get hurt or killed.
Images of bloodied children being carried away from the scene in the Gaza Strip filled television screens around the world and brought about a swift international condemnation of Israel.
Israel is blamed for attacking Palestinian demonstrators on Wednesday, as hundreds of them marched toward Israeli troops to protest the Israeli army's siege of the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah.
In an effort to deter the demonstrators, an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at an empty field, the army said; and then a tank fired four tank shells toward an empty building in the vicinity.
At least eight protestors died, including children. Israel has said it did not deliberately target the protestors.
Israel entered the southern end of the Gaza Strip early Tuesday in an effort to uproot the terrorist infrastructure and destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels running under the Israeli-Egyptian border into Gaza.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat called the incident a "brutal massacre of civilians" and called for international intervention. Palestinians initially reported 23 dead.
President Bush stopped short of demanding that Israel stop its operation in Gaza - now in its third day. But he urged Israel to exercise restraint.
The Israeli army expressed its regrets for the deaths of innocent civilians, but continued to insist there had been armed militants among the demonstrators and that Palestinians had rigged the street with bombs.
The march was not spontaneous but had been organized by the PA itself, the army said.
The incident further tainted Israel's military operation in Gaza, where some 40 Palestinians - most of them militants - have been killed so far in three days of fighting.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz expressed his sorrow over the harm done to Palestinian civilians; but he said that despite Wednesday's mishap, the Israeli military operation would continue in Rafah for as long as necessary.
Rafah is a "central pipeline for transferring weapons" to the Gaza Strip, and as such, it endangers Israeli residents and troops, Mofaz said. He said that the incident would be investigated but it was still unclear what had actually happened.
"A war is underway here, one of the most difficult and complicated forms of urban warfare, with terrorists taking advantage of the [civilian] population," he said.
An Israeli government spokesman suggested it was possible that a tank shell had triggered an explosion of a bomb laid by the Palestinians themselves.
Following the incident, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem backed the Palestinians' right to demonstrate and called on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mofaz to order Israeli troops to leave Rafah immediately.
But Israeli government minister Effi Eitam asked what the children were doing out there in the first place.
"There is something so cynical. You need to ask what are little children doing in the street full of bombs in an area where there is shooting, armed men among them. What were they doing there in general? Why weren't they sitting at home?" Eitam asked in a radio interview.
"The cruelty of the Palestinian society, the readiness to commit suicide and to kill children and women - I'm reminded of the Hatuel family...a mother and four children, five people killed at point-blank range," Eitam said.
Tali Hatuel was killed along the Kissufim road two weeks ago by Palestinian gunmen who shot and her car. After it ran off the road the terrorists approached the vehicle and shot Hatuel and her four daughters, the youngest of whom was just two, at close range.
"This society that kills our children without batting an eye is ready to kill its own children without batting an eye and involve its children with armed men on a street full of bombs," Eitam said.
Israeli troops fanned out into a second neighborhood in Rafah on Thursday. Israeli intelligence reports have indicated that there is a large shipment of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles as well as long-range rockets waiting on the Egyptian side of the border to be transferred through the tunnels into Rafah.
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