Israel Raids Gaza Camp on Holy Day

Capping a week of violence in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces stormed into a Palestinian refugee camp Saturday, killing one man and flattening nearly three dozen homes, according to U.N. relief workers.

The raid at the Khan Yunis camp in the southern Gaza Strip followed a mortar attack Friday on a Jewish settlement that killed a 24-year-old woman and the ambush killings Thursday of three Israeli soldiers guarding another settlement.

A 60-year-old man was killed in an airstrike at the start of Saturday’s incursion. U.N. relief workers said Israeli armored bulldozers destroyed up to 35 homes. It was not immediately known how many of the dwellings were inhabited.

An Israeli army spokesman said troops destroyed far fewer homes than United Nations officials and witnesses reported and insisted that all were abandoned structures used by militants to provide cover for firing mortar rounds and makeshift rockets at settlements.

Residents shaken from their beds only had time to grab a few belongings and flee before the demolition. International human rights groups have condemned such actions, but Israel calls the tactic self-defense.

Witnesses said up to 100 people were left homeless by the raid, which sparked gun battles between troops and militants.

“We ran away carrying our crying children.... My oldest son was hit by a bullet in the stomach,” said Mazen Qanan, 43, as he returned with other residents to pick through the rubble of their leveled neighborhood.

The raid occurred on the fasting day of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, with Israeli society shut down and its borders sealed.

“We condemn this Israeli escalation,” Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said. “This military escalation will only ... enlarge the cycle of violence and counter-violence.”

Bloodshed has worsened in the Gaza Strip ahead of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s planned withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from the area by the end of 2005.

About 8,000 Israelis live in heavily fortified enclaves amid 1.2 million Palestinians in Gaza, which Israel captured along with the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East War. Sharon has argued that evacuating the Gaza settlements and four isolated West Bank enclaves will strengthen Israel’s hold on other areas of the West Bank, where most of its 230,000 settlers live.

Today, Sharon is to present his Cabinet with draft legislation for carrying out the withdrawal, and the bill is to be put to a Cabinet vote Oct. 24. By Nov. 3, the legislation will be presented to parliament for the first of three votes required for it to become law.