Richmond Times-Dispatch · Richmond, VA · December 2004

CP-2004-052

Israeli offensive kills 6 in Gaza

Palestinian militants die in raid spurred by rocket, mortar blasts

©New York Times News Service

Scan 860 × 1644 pixels

Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM — At least six Palestinians were killed and 24 were wounded yesterday in an Israeli army raid near Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. The raid was designed to end days of mortar and rocket attacks from the town on Israeli troops and nearby settlements. Four of the dead were militants linked to Fatah and two were civilians, local medics and the Israeli army said.

Five more Palestinians died and others were trapped when a tunnel they were digging collapsed because of heavy rain near the Egyptian crossing point of Rafah, in southern Gaza. Palestinians use these tunnels from Egypt to smuggle contraband, including weapons, ammunition, explosives and anti-tank rockets for use against Israeli forces.

Last Sunday, Hamas and Fatah militants set off a ton and a half of explosives in an 800-yard tunnel dug under a fortified Israeli army post and then fired at rescuers, killing five Israelis and wounding eight. There was a second explosion an hour later. Hamas said it had taken four months to dig the tunnel.

The Israeli army says it has discovered nearly 100 tunnels from Egypt to Gaza and regularly criticizes Egypt for not doing enough to stop the digging. The army also says the tunnels are the main reason that it has destroyed hundreds of homes near the Rafah crossing point, to create a buffer zone.

In Khan Younis yesterday, hundreds of Palestinians sought refuge from the fighting. Israeli bulldozers demolished several homes that the army said served as cover for those firing rockets and mortars. A local army commander, Lt. Col. Ofer Winter, told Israel radio that the army would stay in Khan Younis “for as long as it takes to secure quiet in the Israeli communities.”

How this transcription was made

Published at reduced precision. The slide label gave 2004-09-18; the page does not support a day, so the record carries only what can be shown. Adjudicated against the printed page: No masthead, folio, running head or page number anywhere on this clipping; the only credit is the standing line "©New York Times News Service". The staged date is contradicted beyond argument by two things the story fixes: it describes "the new, more moderate DATE DEMONSTRABLY WRONG AND NOT FIXABLE FROM THIS SCAN — leave date_iso as staged with the contradiction recorded, or hold the record. The pub assignment is sound: slide 46's other label is proven by folio to belong to s046_2, so Richmond Times-Dispatch falls here by elimination, and it is an existing archive string (4 Filed under the archive’s spelling; the page prints “Richmond Times Dispatch”.

Context added by this archive

Short NYT News Service wire piece. The only voice in it is Winter’s; the six Palestinians killed and 24 wounded are counted but not named, and the hundreds who ‘sought refuge from the fighting’ are not spoken to.

Worth holding against the slide-44/45/46 Winter clippings as a 2004 baseline: a decade before Rafah 2014 the same officer is already being quoted in an American paper promising to stay until there is ‘quiet in the Israeli communities’ while bulldozers work.

Cite this clipping

More from Richmond Times-Dispatch

• Farms of PalestineRichmond Times-Dispatch · 8 January 1911
• Israeli Bulldozers Spark New TensionRichmond Times-Dispatch · 14 March 1981
• Sabra and Shatila: Where Israel Got Its WishRichmond Times-Dispatch · 24 September 1982
• Border closure stops construction in GazaRichmond Times-Dispatch · 10 July 2007

More from the 2000s

• Against all oddsNews Herald · 10 January 2004
• Palestinian athlete is forced to be resourcefulThe Daily Progress · 10 January 2004
• Swimmer braves weather for dreamThe Times · 10 January 2004
• Two-State Solution Sells Palestinians ShortLos Angeles Times · 27 January 2004
• In 1948, Israel did what it had to do to surviveOakland Tribune · 1 February 2004
• For Israelis a lifesaver; for Palestinians a curseCasper Star-Tribune · 22 February 2004
• All 516 clippings from the 2000s →