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Blast kills 10 Palestinians at Hamas rally in Gaza

Posted on: Friday, 23 September 2005, 14:22 CDT

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - An explosion at a militant Hamas rally killed at least 10 Palestinians, including children and gunmen, in the Gaza Strip on Friday in the first deadly incident in the territory since Israel completed its withdrawal.

Hamas accused Israel of attacking the procession of military vehicles and thousands of marchers chanted for revenge.

But the Israeli army denied any involvement in the explosion, hours after Islamic Jihad militants fired rockets into Israel in retaliation for a deadly West Bank raid.

At least two children were among the dead in the explosion at the rally in the densely packed Jabalya refugee camp, a show of armed force by Hamas following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza on September 12 after 38 years of occupation.

"I was thrown several metres, then I looked behind and I saw people dismembered and lying on the ground dead," said one witness.

The incident could stoke militant anger that was already boiling after Israeli troops killed three Islamic Jihad militants in a raid in the West Bank city of Tulkarm.

Senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan, whose brother, a local commander for the group, died in the blast, said Israel had targeted a vehicle carrying five Hamas gunmen.

He said that while Hamas would continue to honor an eight-month ceasefire it had agreed to in February by request of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, it would still respond to Israeli attacks against Palestinians.

"We know that our criminal enemy killed our sons today," Rayan told reporters. "We will continue in the footsteps of the martyrs until we liberate our land and until we remove every last single Israeli soldier from our land."

HAMAS DENIES VEHICLE CARRIED EXPLOSIVES

About 60 people were wounded, medics said, and the blast wrecked the Hamas vehicle. Rayan denied reports that it had carried explosives, saying the vehicle only contained plastic models of rockets that could not detonate.

Hours before the blast, militants from Islamic Jihad fired rockets from northern Gaza into Israel, the first such attack since the withdrawal, in response to an Israeli raid in the West Bank that killed three of its gunmen. It caused no casualties.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the West Bank raid, calling it a "very dangerous step." Palestinian leaders have said such attacks jeopardize a February ceasefire deal and efforts to restart peace talks.

Palestinians are still celebrating Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, which Washington hopes could be a step to reviving a stalled peace "road map."

Hours before the blast, Palestinian authorities took charge of a border crossing for the first time, processing thousands of travelers from Gaza into Egypt following Israel's pullout.

Israel had sealed the Rafah terminal, Gaza's sole conduit to the outside world via Egypt, before completing its removal of forces, saying it would be shut for six months pending renovations and proof Palestinians could rein in Gaza militants.

But with Israel's consent, the crossing was opened on Friday for 48 hours to Palestinians who study, work or need medical treatment in Egypt or elsewhere.

"This is my happiest day ever," said Samar Salem, 16. "We are very happy not to see any Jews in the crossing. For the first time, we are coming to the crossing and we are not afraid to be denied access."

Palestinians hope Gaza will become the embryo of a state in the territories Israel captured in the 1967 war. They want their state to include the larger West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem.

travelers at Rafah had to produce a Palestinian identity card or foreign passport to prevent a repeat of a chaotic deluge of Gazans into Egypt in the first days after the pullout.

(Writing by Corinne Heller in Jerusalem, additional reporting by Tom Perry in Cairo)

Source: REUTERS

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