GAZA CITY, May 15: More than 1,000 Palestinians have been made homeless in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah after two days of intensive demolition activity by the Israeli army, an UNRWA spokesman said on Saturday.

"On entering the camp this morning, we found 88 buildings demolished which had housed 206 families. It affects 1,064 people," said Paul McCann, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

"This is incredibly intense. It is probably one of the worst days of the intifada for Rafah which has already been hit very hard," Mr McCann said.

Palestinian security forces and rights groups also condemned the action. "This is a humanitarian catastrophe and a war crime," said Rashid Abu Shbak, head of preventive security in Gaza.

"The army destroyed roads, electricity and water supplies in the camp. They have destroyed everything," he said in a statement faxed to AFP.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) earlier said more than 100 buildings were destroyed in the flashpoint town on the border with Egypt.

Since the outbreak of the intifada in September 2000, UNRWA statistics show that Rafah has suffered severely from the Israeli house demolition policy, with more than 11,000 people made homeless.

The demolition policy was stepped up after Palestinian militants killed five soldiers in a rocket attack near the border on Wednesday.

The soldiers were killed when a rocket hit their armoured personnel carrier in a buffer zone along the border known as the "Philadelphi route" as they attempted to demolish a cross-border tunnel.

A day earlier, Israel said it would bulldoze 'hundreds of houses' to widen the buffer zone in a bid to secure its patrols and prevent militants from using tunnels to smuggle weapons.

The move was reportedly green-lighted by Israeli PrimeMinister Ariel Sharon. An official from Sharon's office warned the demolition would commence in earnest after troops completed the search for the remains of the five soldiers.

The search ended early on Saturday, the army said shortly after troops withdrew from the town.

Two more soldiers and a Palestinian were killed in the area on Friday, and the body of another Palestinian was discovered on early Saturday under the rubble of his destroyed home, medics said.-AFP