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A Palestinian woman breaks down in tears trying to salvage usable belongings from her demolished house in Jabaliya (AFP)
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JABALIYA,
Gaza Strip, October 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) -
Hundreds of Palestinian families on Saturday, October 16, sift through
the ruins of their homes in the hope of recovering some valuables
after the 18-day onslaught by Israeli occupation army on the northern
Gaza Strip.
"This
is worse than an earthquake. The Israelis threw out the Palestinians
in 1948 and in 1967 and they're trying to do the same thing now,"
said 54-year-old Jamila Yehya.
Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel "Sharon is worse than the Nazis," she
continued, pointing to the ruin of her three-storey house in the
Al-Sikka district, the most damaged in the Jabaliya refugee camp,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Surrounded
by four of her children and holding a fifth in her arms, 32-year-old
Manal Abu Nadi wept over a pile of rubble.
Her
house and nine others belonging to members of her family in Al-Sikka
were flattened on Friday, October 15, shortly before Israeli forces
redeployed away from Palestinian residential areas.
"They
destroyed our house without warning. We left without our shoes,"
she cried as hundreds of people picked through mounds of debris to
search for belongings.
"Sharon
is a butcher."
At
least 129 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive on
Jabaliya, a refugee camp of 100,000, in the deadliest military
operation in Gaza since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Intifada against the
occupation forces four years ago.
Around
100 houses were leveled in Jabaliya and neighboring Beit Lahia, scenes
of the heaviest destruction, said Palestinian security sources.
Iman
Al-Hams, 13, was
riddled with 20 bullets by three Israeli soldiers while
on her way school in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.
She
was left lying in a pool of blood because ambulances had been denied
access.
Another
10-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl died
of her wounds after Israeli snipers shot her in the
chest while she was sitting inside a UN-run school in a Gaza refugee camp.
Massive
Destruction
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A Palestinian reads a letter while sitting in the rubble of his demolished home in Jabaliya (AFP)
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Israeli
tanks and bulldozers churning through Jabaliya alleyways destroyed
at least fifty workshops and shops along the Gaza Strip's main road.
Lamp
posts and electricity cables lay uprooted along roads mangled by
Israeli tanks around Jabaliya and Beit Lahya.
Puddles
of stagnant drain water permeated refugee camp streets with a fetid
smell.
Whole
districts were still without water and electricity on Saturday.
Dozens
of homeless families milled around schools run by UNRWA in the hope of
passing the night in a tent or finding another temporary home.
Relics
Destroyed
Israeli
armored columns also damaged a 4th-century Byzantine archaeological
site in eastern Jabaliya, destroying ancient columns and mosaics, an
official from the Palestinian tourism ministry, Muin Sadeq, told
journalists.
The
site was recently restored with the help of the United Nations
Development Fund, he said.
"Nothing
has escaped the destruction, even this archaeological site which they
knew about. Signs in different languages identify this as an
archaeological site and Palestinian UNDP flags fly above it," he
regretted.
Although
Israeli forces redeployed on Friday, the occupation army has not yet
announced the end of the so-called Operation Days of Penitence and the
army remains in Palestinian territory.
Israeli
occupation forces had twice attempted to break into the Jabaliya
refugee camp since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Intifada, killing at least
52 Palestinians.
The
new bloody Israeli incursion plunged the Gaza Strip again in scenes of
anguish, as intensely emotional
pictures continued to unfold.
In
his annual report on the human right situation in the occupied
Palestinian territories, UN special rapporteur John Dugard said
Israeli "bulldozers have destroyed homes in a purposeless manner
and have savagely dug up roads, including electricity, sewage and
water lines."
