The Israeli army resumed its assault on Rafah refugee camp on Sunday as a member of Ariel Sharon’s cabinet caused a storm when his criticism of house demolitions as ”inhumane” was interpreted as comparing the Israeli army’s actions to Nazi war crimes.
A week into Operation Rainbow, which has left around 50 people dead, tanks and troops went back to the heart of the al-Brazil section of Rafah as heavy fire and attacks by helicopter gunships reverberated across much of the camp.
There were no immediate reports of casualties on Sunday, but house demolitions continued. The worst damage was in al-Brazil where fleeing residents reported seeing armoured bulldozers pulling down homes. Tanks also destroyed greenhouses that provided much of the fresh produce for Rafah, and olive groves on the edge of the camp. Later there were reports of a partial pullback from the Tel-Sultan area occupied since last Tuesday.
Sharon indicated meanwhile that he would press ahead with his withdrawal from Gaza, promising to put the issue to a cabinet vote next weekend. The cabinet is split on the idea of a pull-out, which was rejected this month by Sharon’s Likud party.
Further rumblings of dissent within the ranks came when Israel’s justice minister, Tommy Lapid, told a weekly cabinet meeting that the house demolitions were inhumane. The minister, the only Holocaust survivor in the government, said television images of an old woman picking through rubble for medicine had reminded him of his grandmother, who was killed by the Nazis.
”The demolition of houses in Rafah must stop,” he said. ”It is not humane, not Jewish, and causes us grave damage in the world. At the end of the day, they’ll kick us out of the United Nations, try those responsible in the international court in The Hague, and no one will want to speak to us.”
Cabinet colleagues reacted furiously to the alleged comparison to Nazi war crimes. Sharon asked for a retraction. Later Lapid said his comments were misunderstood: ”I’m not referring to the Germans. I’m not referring to the Holocaust. When you see an old woman, you think of your grandmother,” he said.
Peter Hansen, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, toured the camp on Saturday. He called the destruction ”completely unacceptable”.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said 62 homes had been wrecked in al-Brazil and neighbouring al-Salam during the two days the military occupied the area, contradicting army claims to have destroyed only a handful.
About 1 600 Palestinians have been left homeless by the destruction wrought over the past 10 days. – Guardian Unlimited Â