Israeli official criticizes attack on Gaza homes

By Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press

KHALIL HAMRA / AP Palestinian women and children yesterday peer out of the rubble of a house, damaged by Israeli forces, in the Brazil neighborhood of the Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip.

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Yosef Lapid, leader of the centrist Shinui Party that makes up a crucial segment of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's ruling coalition, said during the weekly Cabinet meeting that a televised image of a Palestinian woman searching for her medicine amid the rubble of her house reminded him of his grandmother during the Holocaust, according to Israeli media reports.

The comment reflected a growing debate in Israel over the justification for the recent offensive, Operation Rainbow, that has killed at least 41 Palestinians, turned dozens of homes to dust, drawn international condemnation and yielded one arms-smuggling tunnel.

Lapid, 71, a Holocaust survivor, said he was expressing sympathy for an elderly woman, not comparing Israel's actions with those of the Nazis. He insisted he was simply moved to remember his grandmother, who was killed by the Nazis. "If I wanted to say Holocaust, I would have said Holocaust," Lapid said later in an interview on Israel Radio.

But Cabinet colleagues were infuriated, saying the analogy was clear. "The comparison, maybe hinted or even unintentional, between the systematic murder of the Jews by the Germans and the army's operations in Gaza ... is not a legitimate analogy," Health Minister Dan Naveh told Army Radio.

Lapid warned that Israel risked more worldwide condemnation if it did not stop demolishing Palestinian homes around the Rafah refugee camp along the border with Egypt. "We must be humane and Jewish and not just security-effective," he said.

On the West Bank, meanwhile, three members of the Hamas militant group were killed yesterday in Nablus while handling explosives, Palestinian security sources said.

The men had pulled their car alongside an abandoned vehicle used to store their explosives, and the storage vehicle blew up while one militant was handling materials inside, the sources said.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the past 3-1/2 years while handling explosives meant for attacks against Israel.

The Israeli offensive was in its sixth day yesterday, although defense officials said it would end soon.

Troops withdrew from the Tel Sultan neighborhood of the Rafah refugee camp early today, the military said. The military said that as part of a partial redeployment, Israeli forces ended the quarantine of Tel Sultan neighborhood, and residents were free to come and go. Troops continued to operate in the Brazil area of the refugee camp.
 
In the bright sun, residents said the destruction looked even worse than they had originally anticipated.

"In one simple word: This is Hiroshima 2004," said Rafah Mayor Saed Zourab in a telephone interview while touring the Tel Sultan neighborhood.

Zourab said that the water and sewer systems have been destroyed, and that it will take a long time to repair downed telephone and electric cables. All the streets in the neighborhood have been damaged, and some residents can't leave their homes because rubble blocks the doors, he said.

Israel has said the offensive, which began with deadly missile strikes early Tuesday, is aimed at finding militants and tunnels through which Palestinian groups smuggle arms and explosives from Egypt. There have been no Israeli casualties, despite heavy fighting with Palestinian gunmen.

Army officials said Israel had located an explosives-laden tunnel and an opening that may have been a passage under construction. They said Israel had arrested or killed dozens of gunmen.

Critics questioned the operation, especially in light of the international criticism that the offensive and the house demolitions have drawn. Other critics said the offensive makes little sense from a military standpoint.

Lapid said an army plan to widen a military-controlled patrol road along the Egyptian border could mean razing 2,000 to 3,000 Palestinian homes, a move, he said, that would invite global outcry. He said the plan "makes me sick," adding that the international community would never let Israel carry out such an operation.

Justice-ministry officials are reportedly studying a proposal to compensate the owners of any demolished homes. The Shinui Party has threatened to leave the government unless Sharon makes progress toward a peace settlement with the Palestinians. During the Cabinet discussion of the operation, Lapid said TV images from Rafah reminded him of the suffering of his family.

"I am talking about an old woman on all fours looking for her medicine in the rubble of her home, and I thought about my grandmother," he told Israel Army Radio.

A native of the former Yugoslavia, Lapid spent part of World War II in the Budapest ghetto and lost many relatives, including one grandmother and his father, in the Holocaust. Many Israelis have relatives who died in the Nazi genocide, and using the issue in political debate, however heated, is considered taboo.

Other critics have questioned the offensive in recent days, saying its objectives are unclear.

"What is more disturbing to a lot of people is not the dissent, but confusion over what the point of the whole thing is," said Mark Heller of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Some analysts said a key motive was revenge; 13 Israeli soldiers have been killed in recent fighting in Gaza.

Others said Israel is trying to send a message of deterrence to the Palestinians ahead of an Israeli withdrawal.

Sharon also may want to look tough for hard-liners inside his Cabinet as he pushes forward with his withdrawal plan.

Sharon's Likud party rejected his Gaza pullout plan in a referendum earlier this month. He has pledged to offer an alternative plan to the Cabinet, where he faces significant hard-line opposition, on Sunday.

Material from Reuters is included in this report.