3-Year-Old Added to Toll at Palestinian Refugee Camp

JERUSALEM — A 3-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead Saturday near her home in the Rafah refugee camp, medical officials said, pushing the Palestinian fatality toll during a 5-day-old Israeli military offensive above 40.

The Israeli army said it was investigating the incident, which occurred during its biggest strike into the Gaza Strip in 44 months of conflict.

An army spokeswoman said she knew of no exchange of fire in the area at the time the child was shot, but a United Nations delegation nearby reported hearing a burst of shots that seemed to come from the direction of Israeli military vehicles.

Occasional gunfire echoed through the streets for much of the day. Some camp residents who ventured out to shop after being confined to their homes for days waved white cloths, scurrying for cover when they heard shooting.

Violence in Gaza has risen dramatically over the last two months as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has sought to marshal support for his plan to withdraw Jewish settlers and soldiers from the seaside territory.

Each side seems determined to bloody the other as much as possible before any pullout to avoid appearing to be the vanquished party. That has created a dynamic of escalating and self-perpetuating confrontations.

The Rafah incursion came after Israel lost 13 soldiers in Gaza, its the worst one-week toll in the enclave.

Israel insists that any withdrawal will be preceded by heavy blows aimed at the infrastructure of the militant groups that make Gaza their base. Israeli forces have killed, arrested or driven underground most of the leadership echelon of Hamas, the largest of the organizations, but military officials say the tunnels under the Egyptian border at Rafah remain a serious threat because they are used to ferry in all manner of weaponry.

Although Israeli forces pulled back from two neighborhoods in the Rafah camp Friday, troops backed by tanks continued hunting for wanted Palestinian militants and tunnels.

One tunnel was found Saturday, the army said -- the first since the offensive began Tuesday.

Israel has come under a barrage of international criticism over the Rafah incursion, including a U.N. Security Council resolution. A senior U.N. official who toured a rubble-strewn street in the camp Saturday called the scope of the destruction “completely, completely unacceptable.”

Peter Hansen, who heads the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which administers refugee camps in the region, also denounced Israel’s demolition of homes and its exposing civilians to extreme risk.

Dozens of buildings were damaged or destroyed during battles that raged in the camp’s squalid streets Wednesday and Thursday. Hansen said 1,650 Palestinians had been left homeless in the last two weeks.

In the wreckage of some homes in the Brazil neighborhood, people tried to salvage their belongings Saturday, picking through chunks of concrete in search of clothing, cooking pots and mattresses.

“We were here when they started to tear down the house with us inside,” said Ijmaa abu Arar, a 32-year-old mother of 11. “We tried to climb the wall to the neighbor’s house. We were stuck for three days in the one room they did not destroy.”

Hundreds of Palestinians whose homes were demolished are finding shelter in mosques and schools. “We escaped with only our clothes,” said Iyad abu Tayour, 28, who has an extended family of 18 people. “We don’t have anything.”

The Tel Sultan neighborhood adjoining the camp, where the incursion began, remained ringed by troops and tanks Saturday. People from the neighborhood pleaded with Hansen, the U.N. official, to intercede with the Israelis so they could bury the bodies of relatives who were killed days earlier.

The child who was killed Saturday was identified by hospital officials as Radwan abu Zeid. Her family told journalists that the girl was tagging along with a group of older children on their way to buy candy at midmorning when she was shot in the head and neck.

Israel insists that nearly all of the 41 Palestinians killed during its operation have been combatants. Palestinian medical officials say that at least a dozen of the dead were children.

The West Bank has been relatively quiet during the Gaza fighting, but sporadic violence flared. East of the town of Nablus, a suicide bomber wounded four people near an army checkpoint. One was a soldier manning the roadblock and the others were Palestinians waiting to pass.

Associated Press reported that it had received a claim of responsibility by telephone from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and identified the bomber as a 19-year-old from Nablus.

There has not been a suicide bombing inside Israel since March 10, when a double bombing at the Israeli port of Ashdod killed 10 people. Israel says it has foiled dozens of bomb plots since then.

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Special correspondent Fayed abu Shammaleh in Rafah contributed to this report.