Israeli forces pulled out of most of the Rafah refugee camp on Monday night amid criticism of the rising civilian death toll and widespread destruction caused by Operation Rainbow.
Israeli military chiefs denied they were abandoning the sweep through the camp in southern Gaza — ostensibly in search of weapons-smuggling tunnels — which was billed as the operation to break Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the area.
Senior officers described the pullback as ”taking a deep breath” before continuing the assault. ”The operation will carry on as long as we stay there,” said Major General Dan Harel, the Israeli army commander in the area. ”It will go in different intensities.”
The army’s Gaza division commander, Brigadier General Shmuel Zakai, said his forces remained in one of Rafah’s neighbourhoods on Monday night.
Israel has been shaken by international criticism of the attacks, particularly after a tank fired into a peaceful march, killing 10 people. It has also faced domestic concern about the raid, after the extent of the devastation was revealed by the army’s partial withdrawal from the al-Brazil neighbourhood.
On Monday, the military admitted killing 51 people in the assault on Rafah, 12 of them civilians. It said it had destroyed 56 homes. The UN and Israeli human rights groups put the figure much higher, saying more than 120 buildings had been destroyed, with some containing several homes. About 1 600 people were left homeless.
Operation Rainbow has so far fallen short of its original intent, with relatively few Hamas or Islamic Jihad fighters killed or captured and only one of five sectors of Rafah swept for tunnels.
The army occupied relatively passive areas of the camp and expected a showdown with Palestinian fighters in other parts as it advanced. It is not clear whether that strategy has been abandoned.
If so, it will amount to a defeat for the military and Ariel Sharon, who is intent on breaking Hamas and Islamic Jihad as fighting forces before carrying through his plan to pull settlers and the army out of the Gaza strip.
Another of the army’s strategies has been dealt a blow by Israel’s attorney general, who has ruled that the military’s plan to destroy hundreds more Palestinian homes close to the Egyptian border in Rafah in order to widen a ”security strip”, the Philadelphia road, is illegal under international law.
Early on Monday the Israeli military pulled out of the Tel al-Sultan district of Rafah, finally permitting the burial of 16 Palestinians killed in the fighting there.
Thousands of people joined a mass funeral cortege for those who could not be buried earlier because their families were under siege.
At a ceremony in the town’s stadium, armed men in Hamas and Islamic Jihad colours shouted ”Death to Israel” and ”Palestine lives” alongside family members of the dead.
The Israelis had seized control of Tel al-Sultan a week ago. The bodies were paraded through the streets and showered with flowers as mourners wailed.
Two children who were shot through the head by the army in Tel al-Sultan last week were buried at the weekend after their parents gave permission for the funeral to go ahead.
The lack of funerals was a source of considerable anger among Palestinians because of the Muslim belief that bodies should be buried before sunset the same day.
The corpses were stored in a makeshift morgue in the commercial refrigerator of a fruit and flower growing company. – Guardian Unlimited Â