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GAZA CITY, Oct 19: The Israeli army pulled out of a Gaza refugee camp early on Sunday, leaving death and destruction in the wake of a four-day operation during which troops searched for tunnels used to smuggle arms from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, witnesses said.
Troops backed by tanks had entered the Brazil refugee camp along the Gaza-Egypt border four days ago. Troops and militants battled repeatedly. Two Hamas gunmen — and a woman — were killed in fighting on Saturday. The army remained in the Salam area of Rafah that it entered a week ago.
An initial investigation found that at least 15 houses were completely destroyed during the army’s Brazil operation, witnesses said. Electric and telephone cables were ripped up, along with water pipes and roads, the witnesses said.
Meanwhile, Israel called up several hundred reserve soldiers on Sunday to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because of rising violence and fears of a new wave of Palestinian suicide bombings.
A government official said 10 battalions of reserve soldiers would plug gaps caused by cuts in defence spending.
An Israeli military source had earlier said there would be five battalions of reserve soldiers.
THREE ISRAELIS KILLED: Three Israelis were killed and another wounded in an ambush by Palestinian gunmen late on Sunday in a village north of the West Bank town of Ramallah, a spokesman for Israeli emergency services said in Al Quds.
“To my sadness we have registered the deaths of three who were wounded,” Magen David Adom spokesman Yoni Yubedovsky told Israel Channel One television.
An Israeli military source confirmed the death toll from the attack at Ein Yabrud village, near the Jewish settlement of Ofra.
“Three Israelis were killed in a shooting ambush in Ein Yabrud village,” the source said, adding a fourth person was moderately injured in the attack.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack in an anonymous telephone call to AFP in the West Bank town of Jenin.
The caller gave no further details, but said the Palestinian militant group would issue an official statement shortly.
Initial reports said the attackers threw explosive devices at the vehicle in which the four Israelis were travelling, then peppered the vehicle with heavy gunfire, army radio said.
A 20-minute gunbattle between the gunmen and soldiers ensued as Israeli emergency services were trying to evacuate the wounded, but the outcome was not immediately clear, it said.
