Rafah

RAFAH REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - Leaving behind a swath of destruction, Israeli troops pulled back yesterday from most neighborhoods in and around this crowded Palestinian camp, which was the scene of Israel's biggest military incursion in the Gaza Strip during nearly 44 months of conflict. Israel said that its operations in southern Gaza were not over but that the army would significantly reduce its presence in the crowded camp and focus on intelligence-gathering. Fighting in and around Rafah this week killed at least 40 Palestinians in three days, though no new deaths were reported yesterday.

RAFAH, Egypt -- Egyptian police stepped up their presence along the breached border of the Gaza Strip yesterday, amid indications that the government would soon close it. But Palestinians by the tens of thousands continued to flow across in a mass, joyous shopping binge given urgency by months of isolation. The break in the border, which occurred Wednesday when masked gunmen blew up a stretch of wall that had divided this frontier city, posed a dilemma for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as well as for Israel.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians, both militants and civilians, as tanks and armored vehicles charged into a refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip early yesterday and uncovered a weapons-smuggling tunnel, according to officials on both sides. Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen clash frequently in the town of Rafah, but yesterday's violence left the highest one-day death toll in Gaza in the past two months, which had been comparatively calm. The Israeli raid came hours after two Israeli Army officers were killed by Palestinian attackers Monday night on a road in southern Gaza.

RAFAH, Egypt -- Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into Egypt yesterday after Hamas militants blew up parts of the fence dividing Egypt from the Gaza Strip, forcing an end to the closing of Gaza that had followed Hamas' takeover of the territory last summer. On foot, bicycle, donkey cart and pickup truck, Gazans crossed the border for a buying spree of medicine, cement, sheep, Coca-Cola, gasoline, soap, cigarettes, satellite dishes and countless other supplies that have been cut off, especially in recent days during a blockade by Israel after rocket attacks from Gaza.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli tanks and bulldozers pushed deep into the southern end of the Gaza Strip early yesterday morning in an incursion that left eight Palestinians dead, half of them militant fighters. Backed by helicopters and missile-armed drone aircraft, about 50 tanks and bulldozers entered the strip at dawn yesterday near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, witnesses said. The tanks moved about five miles into Gaza, taking up positions near the long-shuttered Gaza International Airport and cutting off the main highway connecting Rafah with the rest of the Gaza Strip.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip -- The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, formally reopened the Gaza Strip's border crossing with Egypt yesterday, giving Palestinians control over one of their frontiers for the first time. "I think every Palestinian now has his passport ready in his pocket," Abbas said. "Let them come to cross at this terminal whenever they want." He spoke to more than 1,000 guests assembled under a tent, then cut a ribbon inside the refurbished terminal building at the ragged border town of Rafah.

RAFAH, Egypt -- Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into Egypt yesterday after Hamas militants blew up parts of the fence dividing Egypt from the Gaza Strip, forcing an end to the closing of Gaza that had followed Hamas' takeover of the territory last summer. On foot, bicycle, donkey cart and pickup truck, Gazans crossed the border for a buying spree of medicine, cement, sheep, Coca-Cola, gasoline, soap, cigarettes, satellite dishes and countless other supplies that have been cut off, especially in recent days during a blockade by Israel after rocket attacks from Gaza.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Israeli forces fired a missile and tank shells toward a large crowd of Palestinian demonstrators in the Rafah refugee camp yesterday in an attack that witnesses said killed at least eight people and injured dozens more. Four other Palestinians were reported killed in separate fighting, pushing the Palestinians' two-day death toll in Gaza to more than 30. The offensive, which Israel said it launched Tuesday to staunch weapons smuggling along Gaza's border with Egypt, has triggered the bloodiest bout of urban warfare here in more than 3 1/2 years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Palestinians call it the "dead zone," the southernmost part of the densely populated Gaza Strip, along the border fence with Egypt. It is becoming a field of rubble, the product of a long Israeli campaign to clear the area and create a security buffer. But last week, after a Palestinian attack on a military post left four soldiers dead, the Israeli army took its bulldozing to what is being called a new extreme. Palestinian officials and human rights groups said dozens of occupied homes in a football field-size area were flattened, forcing families to flee for their lives and creating hundreds of refugees.

RAFAH, Egypt -- Egyptian police stepped up their presence along the breached border of the Gaza Strip yesterday, amid indications that the government would soon close it. But Palestinians by the tens of thousands continued to flow across in a mass, joyous shopping binge given urgency by months of isolation. The break in the border, which occurred Wednesday when masked gunmen blew up a stretch of wall that had divided this frontier city, posed a dilemma for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as well as for Israel.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli tanks and bulldozers pushed deep into the southern end of the Gaza Strip early yesterday morning in an incursion that left eight Palestinians dead, half of them militant fighters. Backed by helicopters and missile-armed drone aircraft, about 50 tanks and bulldozers entered the strip at dawn yesterday near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, witnesses said. The tanks moved about five miles into Gaza, taking up positions near the long-shuttered Gaza International Airport and cutting off the main highway connecting Rafah with the rest of the Gaza Strip.

JERUSALEM -- In a sign of escalating chaos in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian police officers furious over the killing of a colleague stormed the Palestinian-administered border crossing into Egypt yesterday, firing guns into the air and forcing European monitors to flee their posts. The confrontation, which sent Palestinian travelers scrambling for safety as they clutched their bags and bundles, came scarcely a month after Palestinian officials assumed control of the Rafah border crossing under an agreement personally brokered by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip -- The Israeli flag no longer flies above this border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Israeli soldiers and police are gone, too. But perhaps the most striking change since the Palestinians took control of the arrivals and departures terminal after nearly 40 years of Israeli occupation is on the faces of the Palestinian travelers. They are relaxed, often cheerful and, above all, proud. For the first time, Gazans are free to come and go without Israeli-controlled security checks or the delays and humiliations that became one of the most common hardships of Palestinian life.

RAFAH REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - Leaving behind a swath of destruction, Israeli troops pulled back yesterday from most neighborhoods in and around this crowded Palestinian camp, which was the scene of Israel's biggest military incursion in the Gaza Strip during nearly 44 months of conflict. Israel said that its operations in southern Gaza were not over but that the army would significantly reduce its presence in the crowded camp and focus on intelligence-gathering. Fighting in and around Rafah this week killed at least 40 Palestinians in three days, though no new deaths were reported yesterday.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Israeli forces fired a missile and tank shells toward a large crowd of Palestinian demonstrators in the Rafah refugee camp yesterday in an attack that witnesses said killed at least eight people and injured dozens more. Four other Palestinians were reported killed in separate fighting, pushing the Palestinians' two-day death toll in Gaza to more than 30. The offensive, which Israel said it launched Tuesday to staunch weapons smuggling along Gaza's border with Egypt, has triggered the bloodiest bout of urban warfare here in more than 3 1/2 years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships battled militants in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least 20 Palestinians as Israel continued its biggest offensive in the seaside strip during more than 3 1/2 years of conflict. Israeli officials said the daylong incursion, beginning with a flurry of pre-dawn air attacks and skirmishing that resulted in half of the deaths, was an attempt to confront militants and stanch weapons smuggling along the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt.

JERUSALEM - More than 30 Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers roared into the southern Gaza Strip in a major raid directed at Palestinian militants, witnesses and the Israeli army said. At least five Palestinians were killed - including a 15-year-old boy - and more than 35 injured in heavy exchanges of fire during the operation, which began last night and continued into early today. Earlier yesterday in the West Bank, a Palestinian cameraman filming violence in Nablus was shot dead by an Israeli soldier.

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians, both militants and civilians, as tanks and armored vehicles charged into a refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip early yesterday and uncovered a weapons-smuggling tunnel, according to officials on both sides. Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen clash frequently in the town of Rafah, but yesterday's violence left the highest one-day death toll in Gaza in the past two months, which had been comparatively calm. The Israeli raid came hours after two Israeli Army officers were killed by Palestinian attackers Monday night on a road in southern Gaza.