Innocents fall in Israeli search for fighters

By Greg Myre
The New York Times

SCOTT NELSON / GETTY IMAGES A Palestinian mother and her children pass Palestinian fighters earlier this week within the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The fighters are resisting Israeli forces after Israeli towns were hit.

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The mission is difficult. The fighters are elusive, darting through the camp's narrow alleys, and civilians are everywhere, with children filling the streets. The result is grim and predictable: Many of the casualties are innocents.

In 11 days of fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli forces have killed at least 90 Palestinians, including about 55 fighters and 35 bystanders, according to Palestinian hospital officials. Seven Palestinians were killed yesterday, Reuters reported.

The dead include 18 Palestinians who were 16 or younger, according to a count by The Associated Press. In addition, most of the wounded, numbering at least 300, have been noncombatants, hospital officials say.

The Israeli offensive in northern Gaza has claimed more Palestinian lives than any operation since the military swept through Palestinian cities in the West Bank in the spring of 2002 in response to a wave of suicide bombings.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops went door to door in Palestinian cities, and the military also suffered substantial casualties. Now, in Gaza, the Israelis are sticking to the relative safety of their tanks and armored vehicles, and just two soldiers have been killed. But this also means the troops tend to be firing powerful weapons into congested areas from a distance.

Singling out fighters

In many instances, Israel has singled out militants among large groups of civilians. In an airstrike Tuesday evening, the Israelis fired on a busy street in downtown Gaza City. One missile missed, but the second destroyed the intended target, a white sedan, killing a leading figure in the Islamic Jihad faction, Bashir al-Dabash, and a bodyguard. Three passers-by were lightly wounded.

Several hours later, at about 1 a.m. Wednesday, an Israeli tank came under fire in the nearby town of Beit Lahiya. Israeli forces responded by shelling a house that they thought was the source of the attack, according to the military.

However, Palestinian ambulance drivers and survivors said three houses were hit by three separate shells. In one, a father and son were killed. In another, a teenage boy was killed in his bed.

And in the Filfil family home, a five-story building, a shell crashed through a top-floor window and slammed into the living room where the parents and nine children had gathered in an attempt to stay safe. None were killed but all were wounded by shrapnel, said Sumaya Filfil, 36, the mother of the children, who range from 7 months to 13 years old.
 
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says he is determined to withdraw Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza next year. But he also says he will not allow Palestinians to fire rockets at Israeli communities without a response.

Large-scale offensive

Still, Israel was wary of waging a large-scale campaign in northern Gaza out of concern that its troops would get bogged down in urban fighting. The military has acknowledged Palestinian civilian casualties, and it says they are unintentional.

"Israel carefully weighs the dangers to civilians. But we feel the terrorists were using civilian areas as their shields," said Zalman Shoval, an adviser to Sharon. "Remember, they are deliberately targeting our civilians. Their rockets forced us into this."

Palestinians have fired about 450 rockets in the past three years, most launched from northern Gaza and directed at the Israeli town of Sderot. Four Israelis have been killed, including two children, ages 2 and 4, who were struck Sept. 29.

While Israeli armored vehicles are parked along the eastern and southern edges of the Jabaliya camp, a warren of cinderblock buildings housing more than 100,000 Palestinians, life inside the camp goes on.

Pedestrians clog the streets, making it difficult to maneuver a car. Policemen casually watch over some corners, and men sit on the front steps of shops, sipping tea.

The deceptive normality is frequently interrupted by Israeli drones, buzzing overhead like lawnmowers in the sky, though they are difficult to spot even on a cloudless day.

In such a congested place, children play in the streets, and teenagers gravitate toward the tanks to throw stones or Molotov cocktails.

On Thursday, Sliman Abu Ful and one of his relatives, Raed Abu Zeid, both 15, were killed by a helicopter missile as they approached to within a couple of hundred yards of Israeli tanks, witnesses said.

Family members said the youths were using an empty plastic tube to simulate the firing of a rocket. The Israeli military said the helicopter fired after two Palestinians were seen trying to launch a rocket.

Ful's mother said she and her elderly husband tried to keep their son away from the Israeli tanks, to no avail.

"I told him to stay at home or go to school," she said as she wept. "But every day the Israelis were there, he would go. He always told me, 'Forgive me, but I want to be a martyr.' "

Despite the large Israeli military presence, estimated at 200 armored vehicles, the vast majority of Palestinian families have defiantly remained in their homes, even those on the front lines, like the Filfils.

The Filfil family is prosperous and can afford to move from the Beit Lahiya area until the danger passes. Gaza City is just a few miles away and has been largely unaffected.

"Why should I run? This is our house," Filfil said.

And when the family members recover, where will they go if Israeli tanks are still parked outside?

"I would go straight home, and take my kids," she said.

Palestinians cite several reasons for staying in the face of such danger. Many have large families and are extremely poor. They say they have no money to move out and no place to go. Others want to express solidarity with the Palestinian militants.

Older Palestinians recall the 1948-9 war at Israel's independence, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians lost their homes, and say they fear the same thing could happen again.

"The catastrophe of 1948 will not be repeated," said Dr. Mahmoud al-Asali, head of Kamal Adwan Hospital, which has treated most of the casualties. "We say, 'We will die here, but we will not leave here.' "