U.N.: Hundreds of Palestinians Homeless
LARA SUKHTIAN
The Associated Press, 22 October 2004
Jerusalem - Israel's recent 17-day military offensive in the northern Gaza Strip killed 107 Palestinians, left nearly 700 homeless and caused more than $3 million dollars in property damage, a U.N. aid agency said in a report Friday.
Operation "Days of Penitence" was launched Sept. 29 in response to rocket fire on Israeli towns that killed five Israelis in recent months.
In the bloodiest campaign in Gaza in four years of fighting, some 200 armored vehicles and 2,000 soldiers patrolled the northern part of the strip to keep rocket launchers out of the range of Israeli communities.
During the campaign, 107 Palestinians were killed and 431 wounded, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which cares for Palestinian refugees.
Ninety-one homes were demolished, making 675 Palestinians homeless, UNRWA said. In addition, 101 houses, home to 833 people, sustained damage, the report said.
UNRWA said it will cost $2.5 million to rebuild the private homes.
In addition, army shelling and bulldozers destroyed 19 public buildings and commercial properties, including government compounds, a mosque, two farms and three factories, among several other small shops, the report said.
Sixteen buildings were damaged, including eight UNRWA schools on the eastern border of the Jebaliya refugee camp, the focus of the army's operation.
Jebaliya, the main launching pad for Palestinian rockets, is the largest of the Palestinian refugee camps, with an estimated 106,000 residents living in an area about a half square mile.
Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, said the vast majority of homes and buildings demolished were abandoned structures used by Palestinian militants to fire on soldiers.
Throughout the incursion, army bulldozers ripped up roads and dug trenches damaging around 12,000 square yards of roads. Water, sewage, and electricity networks were also damaged, the report said. Dozens of acres of farmland were flattened, it said.
Regarding road damage, Dallal said soldiers were detonating explosives planted along the thoroughfares by Palestinian militants. He said the army uprooted crops to stop militants from using vegetation as cover.
More than 50 percent of all fertile land in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, once an agricultural treasure for Gazans, has been destroyed by army bulldozers since September 2000, UNRWA said.
U.N. official: Mideast violence kills 219
BARBARA BORST
The Associated Press, 22 October 2004
United Nations -- Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian attacks on Israelis have cost more than 200 lives and created a sense of "drift and foreboding" in the Middle East, a senior U.N. official said Friday.
Kieran Prendergast, undersecretary-general for political affairs, said "even to speak in terms of a peace process seems to put one at a distance from the present reality" in the region.
Prendergast said that 206 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the month since his previous report to the Security Council. He said the latest deaths raised the toll since the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000 to 3,839 Palestinians and 979 Israelis.
"It pains me to say, yet again, that there is little positive and much that is negative to report to the Security Council this month," Prendergast said.
"Violence, not negotiation, continues to be the all-too-frequent mode of communication in the Middle East. There is a palpable sense of drift and foreboding; in the case of the occupied Palestinian territory, of drift towards chaos."
Prendergast said neither side is fulfilling its obligations under the "road map" peace plan backed by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.
After the closed-door council meeting, Britain's U.N. ambassador Emyr Jones Parry told journalists that there was "widespread concern in the council, dismay at the situation on the ground" and at the lack of progress towards peace.
Jones Parry said the council called for "unimpeded access" for all humanitarian organizations working in the area and negotiations based on the road map.
Prendergast said that Israel has not imposed a freeze on settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, nor dismantled settlement outposts built since March 2001, as called for under the road map. Sales of apartments in the occupied territories rose by 20 percent in the first seven months of the year, he added.
If conducted in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza "could be a useful step toward an end to Israeli occupation" and toward the goal of two states, Israel and a sovereign and independent Palestine, he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is planning to present his Gaza withdrawal plan to the Israeli parliament for a vote of approval on Tuesday.
The Palestinian Authority, Prendergast said, needs to take determined action to end violence and terrorism and to bring about reform of its security forces and other areas.