Flowers and balloons decorate the body of 2-year-old Palestinian baby Nafez Meshal killed by the Israeli army in Rafah

RAFAH, Gaza Strip, November 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – A New York Times correspondent, who visited a mourning Rafah refugee camp Thursday, November 14, wrote of the Israeli atrocities there and its slaying of Palestinian children, babies and toddlers.

Posters of children killed by the Israeli army covered the walls of the alleys among the bullet-scarred buildings of the Rafah refugee camp, a reminder that two 2-year-olds were shot dead there in three days this week, he said in an article entitled "A Palestinian Camp Mourns Its Slain Children".

The Israeli army earlier killed an 8-year-old boy last month also in Rafah, along the border with Egypt, the NY Times said.

Groups of grieving men sat in three condolence tents Thursday, receiving visitors paying their respects. On the same evening, the Israeli occupation army killed another camp resident.

Khaled Abu-Hilal, 37, was fatally shot in his home near an Israeli army position on the border, residents said. After killing him, the army forces claimed they had returned fire after being attacked several times with gunfire and grenades, it added.

In more than two years of the second Palestinian Intifada against Israeli occupation, the Rafah refugee camp, an impoverished community of 90,000 people at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, has become one of the most volatile and deadly fronts of the conflict.

Israeli forces in fortified positions, armored vehicles and tanks along the frontier with Egypt clash daily with Palestinian activists. The soldiers fire machine guns and occasionally tank cannons at the camp in what the always army claims are responses to assaults with small-arms fire, grenades and antitank rockets by local resistance activists.

On the second day of a large-scale sweep against resistance activists in the West Bank town of Nablus Thursday, "Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian in street clashes," the NY Times added.

The killings in Rafah have exacted a heavy toll. In one incident October 17, six Palestinians were killed and dozens were wounded when an Israeli tank fired shells into a crowded neighborhood, said the paper. The army again claimed it was replying to an attack in which an army bulldozer had been hit by an antitank rocket.

Near the border fence in Rafah, the army has demolished scores of refugee dwellings. Hundreds of people have been made homeless.

"Today, residents buried the latest child to die here, 2-year-old Hamed al-Masri. Residents said he was killed on Wednesday [November 13] as his family fled Israeli gunfire near their house a few dozen yards from the border fence," said the NY Times.

Asad al-Masri, carries body of slain son, 2-year-old Hamed al-Masri, killed by Israeli tank fire in Rafah

"His father, Asad al-Masri, 36, said that after a bullet flew into the house, he and his wife picked up their smallest children and fled, with Hamed and his 6-year-old brother trailing on foot. Shrapnel from a tank shell tore into Hamed, killing him instantly, Mr. Masri said. The boy's mother was wounded.

"The army said that troops were returning fire, but Mr. Masri insisted today that there had been no fighting at the time and that the streets were empty as residents prepared for the evening meal breaking a daylong fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan," the paper added.

Masri used to work as a construction laborer in Israel, but had been out of work because of Israeli border closings during the past two years. He could not afford to move out of his house in what has become a battle zone, even though the dwelling has been partly demolished. The homes of seven of his brothers have been destroyed, and there is no money to pay rent anywhere else.

"I worked my whole life to buy this land and to build the house," he said. "We got used to the situation despite the shelling every day."

Although the army has said repeatedly that its forces in Rafah shoot only when fired upon, residents asserted that much of the Israeli gunfire was scattershot and often fired without provocation, the NY Times said.

Khaled Mashal, whose 2-year-old son, Nafez, was killed Monday, November 11, said his baby had been sitting outside with him after the evening meal when a shot fired from a distance hit the boy as he chased a balloon. Relatives said the fatal bullet came from an tank guarding the Israeli settlement of Rafiah Yam a few hundred yards away.

Palestinian children gather near Salem al-Shar, 14, killed by the Israeli army in his home in Rafah

"We're caught here between the border, the settlement and the sea, so where can we go?" said Talal Mashal, a relative.

Another man added, "Shooting could break out here at any time." He said that when the bullets start flying, residents in upper rooms take shelter on ground floors.

Mashal, who is also unemployed, said his family survived on food coupons distributed by the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees. Still stunned by his son's death, he spoke little.

"Innocent children should not be killed," he said, "from both sides."

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