KEY POINTS:
JERUSALEM - Israeli troops have reportedly fired on Gaza residents trying to escape the conflict area.
The BBC reported that it and an Israeli human rights group had been told of the incidents but Israel strongly denied the allegations.
It said its journalists in Gaza and Israel had compiled detailed accounts of the claims, which included cases where Palestinian civilians were allegedly shot in Gaza as they tried to leave their homes, in some cases bearing white flags.
"One testimony heard by the BBC and human rights group B'tselem describes Israeli forces shooting a woman in the head after she stepped out of her house carrying a piece of white cloth, in response to an Israeli loudhailer announcement," the BBC says on its website.
It said the Israeli military had dismissed the report as "without foundation".
The BBC said it had spoken to members of another family who said they were trapped in their home by fighting and had been shot at when they tried to leave to replenish dwindling water and food supplies, even during the three-hour humanitarian lull.
Israel has not allowed international journalists and human rights monitors into Gaza, making it difficult to verify the accounts.
B'tselem said it had been unable to corroborate the testimony it had received, but felt it should be made public.
Munir Shafik al-Najar, of Khouza village in the Gaza Strip, told B'tselem and the International Committee of the Red Cross of a series of events on Tuesday which he said left four members of his extended family dead.
He told the BBC that about 75 members of his extended family had ended up huddled in a house, surrounded by Israeli forces, after troops shelled the area and destroyed his brother's home.
He said they heard an announcement over a loudspeaker saying: "This is the Israeli Defence Forces, we are asking all the people to leave their homes and go to the school. Ladies first, then men."
"We decided to send the women first, two by two," he said. "The Army was about 15 metres away from the house or less. They shot her [the wife of his cousin, Rawhiya al-Najar, 48] in the head," he said. The woman's daughter was shot in the thigh but crawled back inside the house.
He said the family telephoned the Red Crescent, human rights organisations and Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah but after several hours no help had arrived.
"We decided that's it, we're going to die, we are [going] to run and all die at once," the BBC reported him as saying.
"When we did that they started shooting with heavy ammunition from a machine gun on top of a tank," even though all the adults were carrying white flags.
He said three of his relatives, Muhammad Salman al-Najar, 54, Ahmad Jum'a al-Najar, 27, and Khalil Hamdan al-Najar, 80, were killed.
A second family member, Riad Zaki al-Najar, gave the BBC a similar account by telephone.
The BBC said it also spoke to Marwan Abu Rida, a paramedic with the Palestinian Red Crescent, who said he was called to the site and that he came under fire as he tried to reach it and was trapped in a house nearby.
He said that when he reached the location he found the dead woman, Rawhiya, who appeared to have been shot in the head.
In a written response to the incident, the Israeli military said: "An initial inquiry into the allegation raised by B'tselem has concluded that the claims are without foundation.
"The IDF goes to great lengths to avoid harming Palestinians uninvolved in combat and reiterates that it is Hamas that chooses to launch its attacks against Israeli towns from within civilian areas."
In a similar account received by B'tselem, Yusef Abu Hajaj, a resident of Juhar al-Dik, south of Gaza City, said his mother and sister were shot as they tried to flee their home while holding a white banner in a group of people including small children.
The BBC quoted him as saying an Israeli tank had fired at their house while the Israeli military was urging civilians to leave their homes.
Meanwhile, as Israel pulled its last troops out of Gaza yesterday, some Palestinians were working to restart - or are continuing with - the smuggling of contraband under the Gaza-Egypt border, despite the hundreds of Israeli raids which they admit have destroyed most of the tunnels.
They say that highly prized diesel and petrol for fuel-starved Gaza is still flowing through improvised piping under the border as other operators begin to assess the damage and work on reconstructing tunnels filled in by precision F16 bombing.
Reconstruction, if it can be launched in light of the frost between Hamas and the West, may cost close to US$2 billion ($3.7 billion), according to Palestinian and international estimates.
Diplomatic efforts led by Egypt were focusing on reaching a long-term Israel-Hamas truce deal, far short of an accord on Palestinian statehood sought by the United States and other international peace-brokers.
Israel's attacks in an offensive it began on December 27 killed 1300 Palestinians. Gaza medical officials said the Palestinian dead included at least 700 civilians.
Israel said hundreds of militants died and that it dealt Hamas a strong blow that had boosted the Jewish state's power of deterrence and drawn international pledges to help to prevent the Islamist group from replenishing its rocket arsenal.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians died in the conflict.
- AGENCIES
