GAZA/ ISRAEL: UNITED NATIONS RELIEF WORK IN GAZA FACES "CATASTROPHE" AS ISRAEL DEMOLISHES MORE HOMES OF PALESTINIAN MILITANTS MAKING MORE PEOPLE HOMELESS
Record ID:
338106
GAZA/ ISRAEL: UNITED NATIONS RELIEF WORK IN GAZA FACES "CATASTROPHE" AS ISRAEL DEMOLISHES MORE HOMES OF PALESTINIAN MILITANTS MAKING MORE PEOPLE HOMELESS
- Title: GAZA/ ISRAEL: UNITED NATIONS RELIEF WORK IN GAZA FACES "CATASTROPHE" AS ISRAEL DEMOLISHES MORE HOMES OF PALESTINIAN MILITANTS MAKING MORE PEOPLE HOMELESS
- Date: 16th May 2004
- Summary: (W6) RAFAH, GAZA STRIP (MAY 16, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF TENTS AT TEMPORARY SHELTER FOR HOMELESS RAFAH RESIDENTS IN SQUARE 0.06 2. TOPSHOT OF INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (ICRC) TRUCKS ARRIVING 0.14 3. SLV FAMILY SITTING IN TENT 0.21 4. SLV MAN WALKING WITH CRUTCHES AMONG TENTS 0.30 5. SLV MEN STANDING DRINKI
- Embargoed: 31st May 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: RAFAH, GAZA STRIP / NETANYA AND TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
- City:
- Country: Gaza Israel
- Reuters ID: LVA6CKGJGS0RV9C4T2MVV1N3H3A1
- Story Text: United Nations Relief and Works Agency faces
"catastrophe" in Rafah.
United Nations (U.N.) relief officials estimated on
Sunday (May 16) that Israeli armoured bulldozers flattened
more than 80 buildings in Rafah in the Gaza Strip over the
past few days, leaving about 1,100 Palestinians homeless.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) issued a call for the Israeli
military to halt its demolition operations in Rafah.
Since the intifada began more than three years ago,
more than 12,600 Rafah residents have been left homeless by
house demolitions. Another 1,000 were left homeless last
week when the army razed their homes.
"We have said repeatedly that the actions of the
Israelis in Rafah are a disproportionate response to the
military threat that they face there," said UNRWA chief
spokesman Paul McCann. "We're facing a real humanitarian
catastrophe down there."
UNRWA has opened a school to house those who have
recently became homeless and is distributing tents, food,
water, kitchen kits, mattresses and blankets. The agency
estimates it will cost about $32 million (U.S.) to re-house
the thousands who have lost their homes in the Gaza Strip.
Some 120,000 Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday
(May 15) in support of Sharon's stalled Gaza pullout plan,
which senior officials said he would resubmit with minor
alterations.
The original plan, endorsed by U.S. President George W.
Bush and voted down by Sharon's right-wing Likud party,
called for evacuating all Jewish settlements in the Gaza
Strip and four of the 120 in the West Bank.
Hundreds of Israeli women have volunteered for a new
grassroots movement to get soldiers and settlers out of
occupied Gaza amid soaring casualties exacted by
Palestinian militants.
Echoing the "Four Mothers" group whose menfolk fell in
Lebanon before Israeli forces withdrew in 2000, the Shuvi
("Come Back") movement was galvanised by Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's failure to win approval for a Gaza pullout
from his Likud party.
The group and other pullout advocates gained momentum
this week when 11 soldiers were blown to bits by bombs laid
in the path of their vehicles during Gaza operations
against militants.
"It started just out of the plain sense of misery that
we felt as women when we see people being killed for what
we think is no reason at all and we think Gaza is out of
the consensus today and every day that passes another
soldier is killed, or another child is killed, or another
person is killed. It's total waste of blood. We can't
afford it," said Shuvi member Dorit Eldar.
Shuvi activists -- mothers, wives, sisters and
girlfriends of soldiers in Gaza, and other concerned women,
said they swamped Sharon's office Web site with e-mails
this week.
The group also intends to send 60,000 letters calling
for withdrawal to the Prime Minister's bureau, the same
number as those who voted "no" in his party referendum.
"Our first action is to write to the Prime Minster and
we request that he as a Prime Minister of everyone in this
country he is responsible for everybody's lives and we
request him to withdraw from Gaza immediately," Eldar said.
Israel's top general threatened on Sunday (May 16) to
destroy hundreds of Palestinian refugee homes after the
Supreme Court cleared the way for demolition in a
flashpoint Israeli-held corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border.
Refusing to extend a stay sought by a Palestinian
rights group, the court appeared to set broad terms for
bulldozing homes in the "Philadelphi" zone, saying the army
could destroy houses for operational purposes or to protect
soldiers.
Seven of last week's Israeli dead were killed in or near the
buffer area, which Israeli officials said would be
widened to make it safer to patrol and less accessible to
militants who smuggle weapons in by tunnel from Egypt.
But Israel's commander in the region said none of the
homes destroyed in recent days were part of a plan to
broaden the border area.
"We will take every lawful means to ensure the safety
of our soldiers and the Israeli citizens. It is sad that
the terrorists make use of the Palestinian infrastructure
to operate from from there with no regard of the well-being
of the Palestinians in the Rafah suburbs. Any structures
that were destroyed in the past few days were destroyed
only within the context of the bitter battle that was
between us and the terrorists fighting us from within the
Rafah area. No structures were demolished as part of the
plan to widen the border road area," said Major General Dan
Harel.
At the World Economic Forum in Jordan, Secretary of
State Colin Powell said the United States opposed the
destruction of homes in Rafah refugee camp, adjacent to the
"Philadelphi" buffer zone in the southern Gaza Strip and
urged an end to a cycle of violence.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None