- RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters)
- Two Palestinians, one a toddler, were killed and more than 30 wounded
in the Gaza Strip on Sunday when Israeli troops raided a crowded refugee
camp and razed houses.
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- The army demolished two homes that it said concealed
arms-smuggling tunnels. The force of the blast leveled the walls of nearby
homes, killing a three-year-old boy in one and wounding at least 25 people
in others, witnesses said.
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- Witnesses and Palestinian medics said a 26-year-old local
man was also killed by Israeli machinegun fire and five people were wounded
in the overnight tank raid into Rafah refugee camp.
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- Since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation
began in 2000, the army has often raided Rafah in operations it says are
aimed at destroying tunnels dug by militants to bring arms and fighters
into the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
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- It said in the latest operation soldiers found one tunnel
access point behind a baby's crib and another in a kitchen.
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- Rafah is a militant stronghold and at least one Israeli
army vehicle came under grenade attack during the raid, which the army
said was an operation to "fight terror and the smuggling of weapons
in the Gaza Strip."
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- Palestinian adviser Nabil Abu Rdainah said the raid was
part of a "dangerous policy and escalation which targets not just
the Palestinians but also puts the whole area in danger."
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- Israeli diplomatic sources said Washington gave a letter
to Israel on Friday criticizing it for not fulfilling promises to ease
the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for Palestinians and for
Gaza raids in which civilians were killed.
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- Violence has increased since an Israeli air raid in the
Strip last week killed 17 Palestinians and wounded about 80.
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- INFILTRATION FROM EGYPT
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- Soldiers also shot dead two Palestinian gunmen as they
tried to penetrate the Israeli town of Yevul near the frontier with Egypt.
Two Israeli soldiers were wounded in the gunfight.
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- "We had a warning of a breach in the border fence
and responded quickly with a pursuit. The two terrorists spotted us and
opened fire. We shot them," Major Gal Amar told Reuters.
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- The infiltration was the first militant action across
the Israel-Egypt border in more than a decade. Yevul is a few kilometers
south of Israel's boundary with the Gaza Strip, one of the areas where
Palestinians are fighting Israeli occupation.
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- The clash was about 500 meters (yards) from the frontier.
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- "This is something that will definitely require
we examine anew the border known as the 'border of peace'," Brigadier
Yisrael Ziv, Israel's army commander in the Gaza Strip, told reporters.
In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel.
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- The Ahmad Abu al-Rish Brigades, a militant offshoot of
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed the dead fighters
as its own. "This operation was a gift to martyrs who have fallen
in Gaza," it said in a faxed statement.
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- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon travels to the United
States for talks with President Bush this week.
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- Sharon told the cabinet on Sunday he would discuss the
supervision of funds withheld by Israel during the uprising owed to the
Palestinian Authority so they would not pay for "terror."
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- Arafat, under pressure at home and abroad to reform his
administration, continued consultations on a new cabinet on Sunday with
an eye to elections next year.
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- At least 1,612 Palestinians and 604 Israelis have been
killed in the uprising that flared after peace talks stalled.
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