Two Teens Killed in Gaza Attack

One moment, Suleyman Abu Foul was at the breakfast table, asking his mother for food. The next, the 15-year-old Palestinian slipped out unnoticed into a neighborhood torn by more than a week of combat.

A short time later today came the grim news: Suleyman and his 14-year-old nephew were killed by Israeli fire.

“I asked where he was and [the other children] said, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Suleyman’s mother, Galia, recounted a few hours later. “Then they came and told me he was killed. I didn’t believe it.”

The boys were the latest youths to die during the Israeli campaign in and around the impoverished camp. More than 20 minors have died and dozens more have been wounded, according to Palestinian hospital officials and human rights groups.

The Israeli raids came after Palestinian militants fired rockets over the border into the southern Israeli city of Sderot, killing two children, ages 2 and 4.

Today’s deadly violence — plus the death of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who succumbed to injuries — increased the toll from the latest fighting to more than 80. Late in the day, an 11-year-old girl was wounded in the head by a gunshot in the Beit Hanoun community.

The latest cases reminded parents of the risks children face from clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants. Fighting has raged in a cramped, urban setting, prompting frightened children to cower under their beds at night and killing nearly as many civilians as combatants.

Parents said they usually try to keep youngsters inside during military incursions such as this one, which began Sept. 28. But they often can’t keep children out of harm’s way.

Boys, some not yet 10 years old, gather in adoring flocks around the masked Palestinian fighters who move through the narrow streets. Other children are drawn outside by curiosity, the desire to throw rocks at Israeli tanks or-in a place with big families and small apartments-simply to escape overcrowded homes.

Fifteen-year-old Shaban Iskafi said he and some friends ventured out Wednesday to toss firecrackers and rocks at an Israeli bulldozer on a nearby hill. They also tried to hit a tank but it was too far away, said Iskafi, wearing a black T-shirt with the yellow logo of Islamic Jihad, a militant group.

Iskafi said his father was bitterly opposed to such activities and had beaten him for joining rock-throwers during an Israeli incursion last year. But, the youth said, “I want to defend my homeland.”

When the fighting lasts for a week or longer, keeping children indoors becomes more difficult.

Sitting in a bare room crowded with 20 female mourners, Galia Abu Foul said she had barred her six children from leaving the house, and that Suleyman had stayed in-until today. The previous night, he had said he wanted to see if his school was reopening.

His nephew and best friend, Raed Abu Zaid, also went to his death. Israeli military sources said the two were killed by a missile fired from a helicopter after an airborne drone spotted a pair of suspicious figures who appeared to be launching a Kassam rocket. Relatives told the Associated Press that the boys were playing with an empty tube and gasoline-filled bottles, apparently mimicking militants who fire homemade rockets.

Israel launched its offensive to halt repeated rocket attacks by militants based in the Jabaliya camp, a militant stronghold of more than 100,000 residents, and neighboring communities.

The fatal rocket strike against Sderot last week, and a similar attack there in June that killed a man and a 4-year-old boy, underscored how the violence has touched children from both sides during the past four years. While Palestinian youngsters have been killed during Israeli military raids, Israeli children have died in suicide bus bombings and shooting attacks carried out by militants.

According to B’tselem, an Israeli human rights group, 557 Palestinians younger than 18 have been killed during the intifada. The group said 113 Israeli minors were slain in that same period, ending Sept. 15.

During the current incursion, the rights group said that 31 of 75 people who had died by Monday were civilians, including 19 under the age of 17.

Israeli officials have long charged that Palestinian fighters hide behind crowds of children and other noncombatants. They also cite recent cases in which children as young as 14 have been caught with explosive belts of the type used in suicide bombings.

In interviews, Israeli soldiers taking part in the offensive have said they dread going into refugee camps because children are all over the battle zone.

“Just like we used to play ‘road roulette’ when we were kids, rushing out in front of cars, they play ‘tank roulette’ to see who can run through our fire without being hit,” a member of a tank crew told the Yediot Ahronot daily.

But soldiers say they are trained to regard even small children as a potential threat.

“There is always the fear that one of them will come over with a grenade that his father has given him, and throw it at us. The whole crew could be killed,” another soldier told the newspaper. “When they get too close and the dilemma is them or us, I say ‘us’ and I fire at the ground near their feet to chase them away.”

For their part, Palestinian hospital officials said children have suffered worse wounds than during prior incursions.

Mahmoud Assali, a physician who is medical director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, the main hospital in Jabaliya, said children have accounted for more than a third of the 60 or so fatalities the hospital has handled. Of more than 175 injured and treated, 40 were minors, he said.

Some of the dead were blown into fragments, Assali said, and many of the injured bore grave shrapnel wounds and burns. He said Israeli forces appear to have relied more heavily on tank and aerial missile strikes than rifle fire.

Among those recovering from injuries was 5-year-old Mohammed Aqel, struck by a bullet when he went out to buy candy. The boy dropped a coin and when he bent to pick it up, a bullet tore into his right thigh, said his mother, Samah Aqel.

The bullet was removed by surgery Wednesday night.

On Thursday, Mohammed lay in a sparse hospital room, glassy-eyed and wearing a blue T-shirt and Tarzan underpants. Beside him on the bed were packets of plastic toy animals and blocks, but he showed no interest in playing.

Samah Aqel said the family had fled to her father’s house soon after the fighting began to escape shooting near their own home in another section of the camp.

But, she noted sourly, “the danger came to us.”