Bitterness deepens over Gaza raid

Najwa Mohammed El Hashash was desperate to keep her oldest son from rushing out to the angry funeral processions of the latest martyr, so every time a Palestinian in their neighborhood was killed, she hid his sandals.

But 9-year-old Mubarak went anyway, running barefoot. And Thursday, his mother's worst nightmare was realized as her son was held aloft by the procession instead of scampering alongside it. He was the youngest of 10 Palestinians killed on Wednesday when the Israeli army fired a tank shell at a crowd of mostly young demonstrators demanding an end to Israel's military siege of the area.

International demands that Israel end its campaign against this section of the Gaza Strip, a patchwork of sandy plains and shanty refugee camps bordering Egypt, have grown more vocal as the military continued a third day of raids in which 39 Palestinians have been killed. Israel says its operations are aimed at routing militant groups and destroying tunnels used to ferry weapons into the Gaza Strip - all part of a plan to eventually withdraw from the volatile area where Israel maintains about 8,000 settlers.

"Those innocent kids killed in front of the television cameras, for nothing," says Mrs. El Hashash, as she sat with other female relatives, her brown eyes drowning as she waits for the men to come home from the cemetery. "I wish that every Israeli soldier's mother will be sad and angry one day, the way they left me sad and angry."

There is, indeed, a new bitterness in the air here, like a sour fruit growing on the trees along with the dates and oranges. It has fostered an atmosphere of resentment that makes it less likely that anyone here will take Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stated intentions to withdraw from the Gaza Strip as a sign of a turnaround in the Israeli leadership. And even for many Israelis, the campaign, dubbed "Operation Rainbow," it is looking increasingly difficult to see any treasure at the end.

"Until the Next Mistake," read a page-one headline in the largest circulation daily, Yediot Aharonot. "Even if we believe the army's explanations for yesterday's mistake - and we so much want to believe - the sand in the hourglass for the legitimacy of continuing the IDF operation in Rafah is running out," wrote Alex Fishman.

The Israeli military said it fired a warning missile to force back a crowd of protesters, after it spotted gunmen among them. As the crowd advanced, the army said, four tank shells were fired at an abandoned building obstructing the Israeli soldiers' view of the protesters who were marching behind it.

But the official apology from the army for the loss of civilian life, coupled with a simultaneous Israeli pledge to continue the operations in Rafah, has not swayed international opinion amassing against Israel's largest military foray in the Gaza Strip in years.

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