Palestinians carry bodies during a mass funeral procession at Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza strip.

BUREIJ, Gaza Strip, December 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Celebrations for the Muslim Eid-ul-Fitr holidays were violently cut short Friday, December 6, in Al-Bureij, the poorest Gaza refugee camp, by a new Israeli massacre claiming the lives of 10 Palestinian civilians, including two UN staff.

Sitting in a corner of her parents' half-destroyed bedroom, 11-year-old Suheir Abu Khusa clung to her toy cat which meows when you press its belly, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"This is my singing cat, my daddy bought it for me for the Eid," the holiday marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan Palestinians were celebrating when some 40 armored Israeli vehicles stormed Al-Bureij.

"We heard a terrible noise, an explosion and my house was destroyed. I took my little sister in my arms and we hid under the bed," she recalled.

The Israeli army dynamited the house of Ayman Sheshniya, an activist from the local Popular Resistance Committee.

In this wretchedly poor refugee camp, the first items which families were trying to salvage from the wreckage were schoolbooks.

As the sun rose on the battered refugee camp, children sifted through the rubble and the crumpled bits of corrugated iron roofs in an attempt to piece their schoolbooks back together.

Suheir's father Abdelfattah, 60, whose house was seriously damaged when Sheshniya's home was dynamited, explained how he protected his family from the Israeli aggression.

"The (Israeli) tanks shelled the area. I took my six girls, my wife and my sister to the safest room.

"It felt like a war was going on outside. We all got down on the floor, me on top of my children to protect them, stones were falling and flying all over the place," he said.

They later all ran to seek shelter in brother Yaaqub's house, only to find it had partially collapsed in the blast.

The 21-year-old wife of Sheshniya's brother who owned the house which was blown up, recounts her horrific night.

"My husband and I were on the bed downstairs with our two children next to us and all of a sudden somebody knocked on our bedroom door.

"My husband thought it was his brother but it was a group of (Israeli) soldiers," Hanaa said, standing by the remains of her home.

"They grabbed my husband by the neck, handcuffed and beat him up... Then they took him away and rounded up all the women in the building.

"They started shelling and spraying the camp with bullets, a helicopter fired two missiles," she recalled.

"Less than an hour later, I heard a huge explosion coming from our house. I asked to go see what was going on, but the (Israeli) soldiers refused.

"Three hours later, the (Israeli) tanks left and I went to see what happened. Our house was gone."

Israeli occupation troops killed ten Palestinians, including a woman, early Friday during an incursion into the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian hospital source said.

The Palestinians died when around 40 Israeli tanks entered the camp firing shells and spraying bullets from machine guns, before withdrawing.

Ahmad Rabah, director of the hospital in nearby Deir el-Balah camp, said four of the victims whom he named as members of the Mansour family were killed when an Israeli tank shell hit their home.

Three Palestinians were killed by a missile fired by an Israeli helicopter gunship, witnesses said.

Ahlam al-Wawi, 30, sustained life-threatening injuries inside her house when an Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile on the adjacent street. She later died in hospital, the sources said.

At least 20 other Palestinians were wounded during the Israeli incursion, three of them seriously, Rabah said.

Meanwhile, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) announced it would open an inquiry into the "unacceptable" deaths of two of its employees during the Israeli army raid.

"I must condemn what appears to be the indiscriminate use of heavy firepower in a densely populated civilian area. UNRWA will carry out a detailed inquiry into the deaths," UNRWA commissioner general Peter Hansen said in a statement.

The statement identified the two victims as Sama Hassan Tahrawi, a 31-year-old school attendant, and Ahlam Kandil, 32, a school teacher.

An UNRWA spokesman said both were unarmed when they were killed.

"The killing of two staff members on the night of the Eid festival will bring great sadness to all of the agency," the statement said.

The deaths brought the number killed since the start of the Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli occupation on September 28, 2000 to 2,752 including 2,023 Palestinians and 678 Israelis.

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