Israeli Army Strikes at Palestinians; 7 Are Shot to Death
By JAMES BENNET
ERUSALEM, April 3 ? In a series of military strikes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians today, and soldiers blocked more than 1,000 Palestinian men and boys from returning home for a second day as the army scoured a refugee camp for wanted men.
And on the outskirts of East Jerusalem, sending up clouds of dust, the Israeli authorities used jackhammers and backhoes to crush more than a dozen Palestinian homes and other buildings that they said lacked permits. Palestinians said the permits were prohibitively expensive and difficult to obtain.
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In the refugee camp, in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, the army said that on Wednesday it summoned all male residents between the ages of 15 and 45 to appear in the camp's center, where they were detained and interrogated one by one.
Those deemed innocent were placed on trucks and sent to another camp, where they were released and instructed not to return home for three days, the army said.
The action came after a suicide bomber from a village near Tulkarm struck the Israeli town of Netanya on Sunday, killing himself and wounding three dozen others.
The army said the action would help it screen wanted men from the innocent. "If they didn't come forward, they probably have something to hide," Maj. Sharon Feingold, an army spokeswoman, said today.
Palestinians in Tulkarm said today that as many as 3,000 men and boys as young as 13 had been rounded up. They said soldiers had threatened them with punishment if they did not appear at the collection point, a girls' school.
Ramzi Abu Atiyeh, 20, said that after being interrogated, he was loaded onto a truck with about 50 others and dropped near the other camp, Nur Shams. "They dropped us there and told us not to return for three days," he said. "We didn't know what we were going to do."
He said strangers in the camp had given him a place to sleep. He and other Palestinians said roads back into their own camp had been blocked by barbed wire or soldiers.
Another man staying in Nur Shams, who gave his age as 35, said he had been forced to leave behind six children, aged 3 months to 11 years, as well as his wife, sister and mother. "My body is here, and my mind is there," he said. "My kids need their father."
He said he was reluctant to give his name for fear of Israeli reprisal, but then identified himself as Muhammad Tawfiq.
"This is a nightmare," he said.
The army said it had made no provision for those without places to stay. It said the soldiers had arrested 13 Palestinians in the Tulkarm camp.
The United Nations agency that administers Palestinian refugee camps said Israeli forces had broken into and used one of its girls' schools to detain Palestinians. Peter Hansen, the commissioner general of the agency, called the move "a violation of international legal norms." The army did not immediately respond.
The operation in Tulkarm, which was still under way tonight, was one of several unfolding throughout a violent day in the West Bank and Gaza.
At the southern edge of the Gaza Strip before dawn, Israeli tanks and bulldozers supported by helicopters raided the Rafah refugee camp in what the army described as an effort to find and destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels. The army said its forces had come under attack and had shot back.
Palestinians in Rafah said that four men had been killed, but that only one had been armed. Rami Zanoun, 19, who was recovering today from shrapnel wounds to one leg, said a helicopter had fired a missile at him and three friends as they sat outside observing the raid.
Four soldiers were wounded when a bomb burst beneath a tank. The forces did not find any tunnels, but demolished at least four houses. The army has destroyed dozens of homes in Rafah, saying they are used to hide entryways to tunnels or as sniper positions.
Later in the day and farther north, Israeli soldiers opened fire on two Palestinians who the army said had entered an off-limits area and appeared to be planting something that might have been an explosive. Palestinian authorities said the men were farmers picking vegetables.
The army said soldiers had called on the men to halt, then shot into the air as they ran, and then shot them when they still failed to stop.
No explosives were found. The army said the men had been wounded but still alive when they were turned over to a Palestinian ambulance, but a doctor at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said later that one of them had died. He identified the man as Eyad Elyan, 26.
In the West Bank city of Qalqilya, soldiers on an overnight search late Wednesday for a man planning a suicide bombing shot and killed a 14-year-old boy who opened his door to watch them, Palestinians said. The army said the boy had tried to run away and ignored calls to stop and warning shots before soldiers fired at him.
The army said that in the last 24 hours it had stopped three would-be suicide bombers, including the one in Qalqilya.
In Nablus, in the West Bank, soldiers shot and killed Khaled Rayyan, 28, a local leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas. His wife, Salam, told The Associated Press that Mr. Rayyan had been killed when he tried with a pistol to attack the troops who were pursuing him.
In Sur Bahir, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, earth-moving machines arrived at dawn and, under military guard, worked until dusk destroying more than a dozen houses and other buildings, some of which appeared to be new or under construction.
The Israeli authorities accuse Arabs of building hundreds of illegal homes in Jerusalem. Arab residents of Jerusalem accuse Israeli Jews of seeking to drive them out of the city.
Nidal Ali Atoun, 31, a laborer, said he had spent more than $62,000 and was still working on his new two-story house when the wrecking crew arrived without warning today.
"They don't give permits here," he said, as the clattering machines pancaked his house. "It's hatred."
