July 21, 2003	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 20, 1424

RAFAH: Two weeks after the Israeli army partially withdrew from Rafah’s impoverished Hay as-Salam neighbourhood on the Gaza-Egypt border,the lucky few whose houses are still standing are starting to move back, hoping quiet will last.

Aided by neighbours, Yunis Ghanam, 50, is filling bullet holes with plaster in what used to be his bedroom and fixing water pipes damaged by army tanks.

In a few days, he will return home and has already brought back his six birds. “It’s a sign we will go back to normal, God willing,” says Ghanam.

The house is otherwise empty and its walls bare. Ghanam and his 10 children left six months ago owing to frequent army raids in the area and persistent gunfire.

Rafah mayor Sayed Zurub says 243 Palestinians died in his town since the beginning of the intifada, almost three years ago, and 80 per cent of them in neighbourhoods on the border with Egypt.

The army, which under the 1993 Oslo accords retains control of the border, also demolished hundreds of buildings, leaving as many homeless families behind, in order to create a buffer area of razed land.—AFP