Israeli forces kill 10 in Gaza

8.10am - By CYNTHIA JOHNSTON

Rafah, Gaza Strip - Israeli tanks and helicopters fired on protesters in a refugee camp on Wednesday, killing 10 Palestinians and raising a two-day death toll to 33 in Israel's bloodiest Gaza raid in years, witnesses said.

Medics said more than 50 people were wounded in the besieged Rafah camp in the southern Gaza Strip and that the casualties included children and teenagers dismembered by the blasts.

The barrage of Israeli fire sent a marching crowd fleeing in terror, some dragging bloodied comrades and others carrying wounded children in their arms. One witness described a "sea of blood with body parts flying all over".

Expressing "deep sorrow over the loss of civilian lives", the army said it did not fire deliberately at the procession but that tank fire designed to drive back the protesters may have caused casualties. It said gunmen were among the crowd.

"It was horrifying," said Mahmoud Abu Hashem, 35. "There was one person with his intestines coming out. Another had blood covering his face and you couldn't even make out his features."

In a rare but gently worded rebuke to a key ally, US President George W Bush told reporters: "I continue to urge restraint. It is essential that people respect innocent life in order for us to achieve peace."

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called the strike a "war crime" against peaceful demonstrators, demanded punishment for those responsible and appealed for international intervention.

The bloodshed also brought renewed international pressure on Israel to end its assault, which began on Tuesday with the stated goal of rooting out militants and uncovering tunnels used to smuggle weapons across the border from Egypt.

A UN human rights envoy accused Israel of war crimes and a violation of humanitarian law, and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he was "deeply distressed" by the high civilian casualties in Gaza.

Bodies carried on piling up in a flower freezer converted into a makeshift morgue after staff at the refugee camp's main hospital strained to cope with the dead along with dozens of wounded in two days of Israeli military assaults.

The firing began as marchers surged toward the Tel Sultan neighbourhood, focal point of Israel's sweep into Rafah, to demand that humanitarian aid be allowed in.

Brigadier Ruth Yaron, Israel's chief military spokeswoman, said a helicopter fired a missile into an open area trying to scare away the demonstrators and then shelled an abandoned building when they kept moving toward Israeli forces.

"It is possible that the casualties were the result of the tank fire on the abandoned structure. The details of the incident continue to be investigated," the statement said.

The army further insisted Palestinians had rigged the road used by the marchers with explosives against Israeli forces.

Palestinians said the incident evoked bitter memories of the army's 2002 assault on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, where forces flattened an entire neighbourhood during pitched battles with militants following suicide bombings in Israel.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in Rafah and demanded the surrender of militants. Troops rounded up some 2000 men and youths before releasing most and taking 150 away to a border post, witnesses said.

An international outcry was sparked by Israeli threats to flatten hundreds of Rafah homes to widen an army-controlled security corridor along the border with Egypt.

Amid the bloodletting, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon worked to revive his Gaza withdrawal plan, which aides said may be presented for cabinet approval as early as next week.

Violence has worsened in Gaza since Sharon proposed evacuating troops and Jewish settlers in a plan backed by most Israelis and the United States, but rejected by his right-wing Likud party in a referendum earlier this month.

Palestinian militants want to claim as a victory any pullout by Israel from territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, but the army is determined to smash them first.

- REUTERS