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