Teenager killed in Israeli raid

GAZA - A Palestinian man was killed and 11 people were wounded when Israeli troops, backed by tanks and bulldozers, thrust into parts of the Gaza Strip early yesterday morning, witnesses and hospital sources said.

They said Mahmoud Aqel, aged 19, was shot in the chest when Israeli soldiers moved into the Brazil refugee camp in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt.

Hospital sources said the wounded, including three children, were injured by Israeli tank shrapnel.

Witnesses said the bulldozers demolished several houses and flattened farms along the border in an operation that lasted about four hours. They said the Israelis moved about 100 metres into the camp before beginning to withdraw.

Scores of Palestinians fled their homes in terror, crawling on the streets to evade the gunfire, the witnesses said.

"It is another savage assault by the Israelis. A continuation of attempts to continue the occupation. But it will all fail to push our people to surrender," Major-General Abdel-Razek al-Majaydeh, Gaza's public security chief, said.

The Israeli Army said it was looking into the report.

Several times in recent weeks Israeli troops have moved into areas of the Gaza Strip handed over to Palestinian rule under a 1994 peace deal.

The Army has said each time it was fighting Palestinian militants responsible for attacks against Israelis since the start of a Palestinian uprising seven months ago against Israeli occupation in which at least 402 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 76 Israelis have been killed.

The violence erupted as Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was due in Washington to meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George W. Bush on an Egyptian-Jordanian plan to end the violence.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has insisted that Israel will not reoccupy lands it handed over to the Palestinians but defends the incursions as necessary for ensuring Israeli security.

Fighting at the Brazil camp first flared on Tuesday after Israeli bulldozers moved in to destroy a barrier that Palestinians had erected to protect the camp, witnesses said. A Palestinian policeman was killed and a woman was wounded in the gunbattle.

The Israeli Army said troops had returned fire after Palestinian gunmen shot at soldiers and threw hand grenades.

- REUTERS

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