The end of a bloody week of destruction and terror in Gaza has left people dead, maimed and homeless, writes Khaled Amayreh Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles into a crowd of civilians in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Monday evening, 20 October, killing at least eight people and injuring and maiming as many as 100. A few minutes previously, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at "an unknown target" in the camp, which turned out to be a civilian vehicle. The two passengers, whom Israel initially claimed were "militants" but later admitted were civilians, were incinerated beyond recognition. While crowds gathered around the vehicle to try to extinguish the fire and remove the charred remains, an Apache helicopter fired another missile into the crowd. Medical sources said as many as eight people were killed and more than 90 injured, and that many of the injured sustained critical wounds and burns. By Tuesday morning, the death toll had risen, as at least six more people died of their injuries. One of those killed was Zain Shahin, a medical doctor who rushed to the scene to treat the wounded. Eyewitnesses said he aided some people on the ground before he was killed. In an effort to justify the strikes, the Israeli state-run media claimed the people targeted were Palestinian "terrorists". Later, however, Israel's Channel 10 TV station admitted that none of the people killed were militants, adding that the killing was "a mistake". An Israeli Peace Now official described the Gaza attacks as "calculated and deliberate", saying that "Sharon and Mofaz knew quite well what they were doing." The attacks on the Nuseirat camp were preceded by four other air strikes on densely populated areas of Gaza. The air strikes began at midday on Monday when an F-16 fighter bomber fired two missiles at a two-storey house under construction at the Shujaiya neighbourhood in eastern Gaza. The structure, located less than 150 meters from the home of Abdullah Al-Shami, political leader and spokesman for the Islamic Jihad, was destroyed. At least 15 people were injured in the bombing, one seriously. Al-Shami was not hurt. Speaking shortly after the incident, Al-Shami lashed out at the international community which, he said, "leaves no stone unturned when Zionists are killed, but says nothing and does nothing when Palestinians are massacred in droves by the Israeli occupation army". According to the Israeli state-run media, the targeted house was being used as a bomb factory by Hamas. Neighbours and eyewitnesses, as well as foreign observers in Gaza, strongly refute the Israeli allegations, calling them "brash lies" intended to justify "these malicious atrocities against innocent civilians". "This building is under construction," said eyewitness Mohamed Mushtaha. "Does it look like a bomb factory? "They [Israel] lie and lie. The sad thing is that most of the world believes them, and those who don't believe them can't do much to help us." Shortly after this attack, another Apache helicopter fired two missiles at a car in central Gaza, killing two Hamas activists. The victims were identified as 28-year-old Khalid Al- Masri and 26-year-old Iyad Al-Helou. An innocent bystander identified as 35-year-old Marwan Al-Khatib, was also killed in the air strike, and eight schoolchildren were injured in the attack. The attacks in Gaza were apparently in response to the attacks on three Israeli soldiers who were ambushed and killed by Palestinian gunmen on Sunday, 19 October. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade initially claimed responsibility for the attack, but it was later established that the Hamas military wing, Izziddin Al-Kassam Brigades, carried out the ambush. On Monday, 20 October, Hamas released a video tape showing footage of Islamist fighters removing weapons from the bodies of the dead Israeli soldiers before fleeing the site near the village of Yabroud, northeast of Ramallah. Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation army finished the "first phase" of a wide scale and brutal rampage of terror and murder in Rafah at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, in which entire neighbourhoods were reduced to rubble. For more than 72 hours, Israeli tanks and bulldozers were busy demolishing hundreds of homes at the Yibna and Brazil refugee camps in Rafah, adding to the estimated 2000 men, women and children rendered homeless in the last 10 days, some for the second or third time. Hundreds of residents were seen fleeing on donkey carts piled-up with blankets and whatever meager possessions they were able to salvage. "We were able to escape through some broken windows with nothing but our clothes, not even our shoes. Our identity cards, our money, everything is inside our home," said Amal Yousuf, one of the victims, sitting atop a pile of rubble. "We have been sleeping on the streets for two nights now, we have no food, no water ... I don't have any money." Besides leaving two neighbourhoods completely flattened, the week-long rampage of terror also left 15 people, mostly civilians, dead and as many as 100 others maimed or badly injured. Rafah Governor Majeed Al-Agha described the situation in his town as "like the aftermath of a powerful earthquake". "I think I can safely compare what the Israelis did here to what the Nazis did in Europe 60 years ago," he said. Al-Agha's remarks were backed up by the London-based human rights group Amnesty International, who described the widespread destruction of civilian homes as "a war crime", while some Israelis watching television footage of the destruction denounced the rampage as "criminal and nefarious", with some even describing what happened as a "holocaust". Israel sought to justify the rampage in Rafah, stating the need to uncover and destroy tunnels used by suspected Palestinian militants to smuggle weapons from Egypt.
