Children die as Israel fires on crowd

Israeli forces fired tank shells, helicopter missiles and machine-guns on Wednesday on a large crowd of Palestinians demonstrating against an Israeli invasion of a neighbouring refugee camp, killing at least 10 people, most of them children, Palestinian witnesses and medical workers said.

At least 50 people were wounded in the attack, also mostly children, a hospital official said.

The demonstrators — apparently almost all civilians — were marching from the town of Rafah toward the neighbouring refugee camp when tanks and helicopters fired at least four shells and four missiles, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said.

Associated Press Television News footage showed a large explosion going off in a crowd of demonstrators, followed by Palestinians carrying the injured — among them several children — from the scene.

Israeli helicopters were overhead at the time and tanks were in the area, but it was unclear what caused the explosion.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment, but defence sources said the military has begun a high-level inquiry into the incident.

Wounded were evacuated by ambulance, private cars and donkey carts to the Rafah hospital, witnesses said. The hospital stairs and floors were drenched in blood as doctors shouted for help and blood donations. Hospital staff treated the wounded on the floors after quickly running out of beds.

Israeli forces invaded the Tel Sultan neighbourhood of the Rafah refugee camp early on Tuesday. Twenty-four Palestinians were killed on Tuesday and Wednesday during the army’s Operation Rainbow, aimed at hunting down militants and destroying arms-smuggling tunnels.

”We cannot handle the situation, no hospital in the world can handle the situation,” said Dr Moawiya Hassanain, the chief hospital spokesperson. ”I got instruction from President [Yasser] Arafat to mobilise all our teams to Rafah immediately and declare a state of emergency all over Gaza Strip hospitals.”

Hassanain said at least 10 people had been killed and 50 wounded. He added that the hospital had received numerous body parts and could not yet give an exact death toll.

Shabtai Gold, a spokesperson for Physicians for Human Rights, said the army was preventing ambulances from travelling from nearby Khan Younis to Rafah.

An estimated 3 000 people were participating in the demonstration against the Israeli invasion of the nearby Tel Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah refugee camp. — Sapa-AP