SHOTLIST:

Rafah, Gaza Strip - 4 Feb 2002

1. Various shots of men gathered around destroyed car

2. Various parts of car

3. Ambulance standing by

4. Various shots of people collecting body parts from around the car

5. Various shots of surgeons operating on wounded man at hospital in Khan Yunis

Essaweya, East Jerusalem

6. Wide shot of bulldozers inside village

7. Israeli soldiers escorting the bulldozers

8. Palestinians on hillside looking at demolished house

9. Various demolished house, pan to woman standing crying among ruins

10. Israeli border police and Palestinians at ruins

11. Long shot of Palestinians, pan to police on road firing teargas

12. Patrol of Israeli soldiers

Jerusalem

13. Walking shot Danny Ayalon

14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Danny Ayalon, Prime Ministerial foreign policy advisor:

"Last night in Gaza a bomb factory -- a mortar factory -- was hit. This was an action of self-defence. Israel has the right, indeed the duty, for self-defence since the palestinians keep the terror. We have the mortars, which is an indiscriminate killer on our community. The terror continues and where the palestinians -- Arafat -- do not prevent it, as they have to by all the agreements and commitments, we must do it."

15. Walking shot Danny Ayalon

STORYLINE:

Four Palestinians were killed Monday in an explosion in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian doctors and witnesses said.

The dead men were discovered in a burned-out car about 600 meters (yards) from the Sufa crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, near the town of Rafah.

The dead men were not immediately identified. A fifth man, who was badly wounded, was taken to Nasser Hospital in the nearby town of Khan Yunis.

A Palestinian farmer from the area said he heard an explosion near his land. He said that he found a completely destroyed car, and human body parts were spread about 10 meters (yards) around the car.

Kalashnikov assault rifles were reportedly found near the vehicle.

The Israeli military said it was checking the report.

In East Jerusalem, Israeli bulldozers demolished two Palestinian houses in the Palestinian neighborhood of Essaweya.

Israel said the homes were demolished because the owners failed to get the proper permits to build them.

Israeli border police and soldiers fired tear gas to disperse the crowd as the demolition took place.

Israel has defended an rocket attack earlier on Monday, in which a goldsmith's workshop in just north of Gaza City was destroyed.

Israel claims the workshop was illegally manufacturing mortar bombs.

Danny Alayon, a foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Arial Sharon, said Israel had a right and a duty to defend itself because the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had failed to prevent terrorism in the Palestinian territories.

SHOTLIST:

Rafah, Gaza Strip - 4 Feb 2002

1. Various shots of men gathered around destroyed car

2. Various parts of car

3. Ambulance standing by

4. Various shots of people collecting body parts from around the car

5. Various shots of surgeons operating on wounded man at hospital in Khan Yunis

Essaweya, East Jerusalem

6. Wide shot of bulldozers inside village

7. Israeli soldiers escorting the bulldozers

8. Palestinians on hillside looking at demolished house

9. Various demolished house, pan to woman standing crying among ruins

10. Israeli border police and Palestinians at ruins

11. Long shot of Palestinians, pan to police on road firing teargas

12. Patrol of Israeli soldiers

Jerusalem

13. Walking shot Danny Ayalon

14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Danny Ayalon, Prime Ministerial foreign policy advisor:

"Last night in Gaza a bomb factory -- a mortar factory -- was hit. This was an action of self-defence. Israel has the right, indeed the duty, for self-defence since the palestinians keep the terror. We have the mortars, which is an indiscriminate killer on our community. The terror continues and where the palestinians -- Arafat -- do not prevent it, as they have to by all the agreements and commitments, we must do it."

15. Walking shot Danny Ayalon

STORYLINE:

Four Palestinians were killed Monday in an explosion in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian doctors and witnesses said.

The dead men were discovered in a burned-out car about 600 meters (yards) from the Sufa crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, near the town of Rafah.

The dead men were not immediately identified. A fifth man, who was badly wounded, was taken to Nasser Hospital in the nearby town of Khan Yunis.

A Palestinian farmer from the area said he heard an explosion near his land. He said that he found a completely destroyed car, and human body parts were spread about 10 meters (yards) around the car.

Kalashnikov assault rifles were reportedly found near the vehicle.

The Israeli military said it was checking the report.

In East Jerusalem, Israeli bulldozers demolished two Palestinian houses in the Palestinian neighborhood of Essaweya.

Israel said the homes were demolished because the owners failed to get the proper permits to build them.

Israeli border police and soldiers fired tear gas to disperse the crowd as the demolition took place.

Israel has defended an rocket attack earlier on Monday, in which a goldsmith's workshop in just north of Gaza City was destroyed.

Israel claims the workshop was illegally manufacturing mortar bombs.

Danny Alayon, a foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Arial Sharon, said Israel had a right and a duty to defend itself because the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had failed to prevent terrorism in the Palestinian territories.

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide pan demolished houses close to border.

2. Palestinian man walking through the rubble.

3. Pan of rubble

4. Palestinians carrying remnants of their belongings

5. Bag

6. Various Palestinians walking through the rubble and sifting through the wreckage

7. Man sitting round fire in shell of house

8. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Voxpop "I have nothing to say but to pray for God, there is not much to say. I know one thing, I have no house, no where to live, I can't even afford to rent a house. I hope God will help us. "

9. People round fire

10. Various of men walking through the rubble looking for belongings and salvageable material

STORYLINE:

A dozen Israeli bulldozers and armoured vehicles drove into the Rafah refugee camp, before dawn on Thursday, and flattened 32 homes, according to Palestinian sources.

Local officials said hundreds were made homeless, after residents fled their homes in heavy rain .

The raid came in retaliation for Wednesday's deadly assault, by Islamic militants, on an Israeli army post.

According to Israeli officials, eight assailants were involved in the attack.

Six remained on the Gaza side, to deliberately set off alarms on the high-security border fence, as a diversion.

The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility, saying the attack was partly a response to last week's Israeli seizure of a ship laden with 50 tons of Iranian-made weapons.

Last month, Hamas had announced a suspension of mortar attacks and suicide bombings in Israel, in compliance with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's truce call.

The Palestinian Authority denounced the Israeli raid as a "serious crime", aimed at sabotaging the US truce mission.

Earlier this week, American mediator Anthony Zinni had left the region on a hopeful note, saying both sides were trying to make a cease-fire work.

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide pan over Rafah refugee camp

2. Mid shot people walking across rubble

3. Two women

4. Wide shot widened camp

5. Wreckage

6. Palestinians walking through camp

7. Various people attempting to salvage belongings

8. Elderly woman

9. Palestinians

10. SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Voxpop:

"I cannot understand how they're carrying out this destruction when the whole the world is watching."

11. Belongings

12. SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Voxpop:

"They destroyed everything, our homes and we have nothing else left."

13. Various Palestinians in Rafah

14. Palestinians trying to salvage food

15. Various Palestinian man looking at rubble

16. Various Palestinians sifting through rubble

17. Mid shot women

18. Two children walking over destruction

19. Man lifting metal

20. Various people in refugee camp

21. Man directing traffic through the camp

22. Mid shot road through Rafah

STORYLINE:

Israeli troops withdrew from the besieged Palestinian neighbourhood of Tel Sultan in the Rafah refugee camp, early on Monday, leaving behind dozens of demolished homes, acres of levelled agricultural land and residents despairing over how the destruction will be repaired.

Troops continued to operate in the Brazil area of the refugee camp.

Tel Sultan was the focus point of an Israeli military sweep through the sprawling refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border.

Residents said the tanks pulled back in the direction of a Jewish settlement after midnight.

However, the six-day Israeli raid continued in other areas of the camp.

Wary residents who left their homes - many for the first time since Israel launched its offensive - confronted streets and homes bulldozed into mounds of rubble, razed farms and greenhouses and sewage running through streets decorated with downed electric and telephone cables.

Israel's operation has led to sharp international and local criticism.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Yosef Lapid caused an uproar on Sunday when he said images of Israel's destruction in the Rafah refugee camp reminded him of his grandmother, who suffered Nazi atrocities during World War II.

Rumours of the destruction leaked out of the neighbourhood during the army's six day siege, but no one could enter or leave the area during the operation.

The water and sewer systems in the camp have been destroyed, Rafah mayor Saed Zourab said, adding it would take a long time to repair downed telephone and electric cables.

All the streets in the neighbourhood have been damaged, and some residents can't leave their homes because rubble blocks the door, he said.

Israel's "Operation Rainbow" was launched to uncover and destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border and round up militants, according to the army.

However, only one tunnel has been uncovered, while 41 Palestinians have been killed and dozens of homes destroyed.

The widespread destruction has raised questions in Israel and the world over the goals of the invasion - which was launched less than a week after 13 Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants.

Some critics said the campaign made little sense from a military standpoint.

Some said it was meant as revenge against the militants and to boost the morale of Israeli troops.

Others questioned why Sharon approved it, even though he is pushing for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide shot of Israeli Apache helicopters firing missiles

2. Site of missile strike

3. Smoke rising behind wall

4. People fleeing blast

5. Various of damage with holes in wall

6. Ambulance arriving at hospital with injured being taken out

7. Various scenes inside casualty department with injured arriving

8. More ambulances arriving with injured

STORYLINE:

An Israeli helicopter fired at least one missile at a crowd of people in Rafah on the Gaza Strip on Thursday killing three and wounding 15 others, Palestinian hospital officials said.

It was the second missile strike on the area in several hours.

The earlier attack killed seven people.

The second air strike followed an intense exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants, witnesses said.

APTN pictures showed two Apache helicopters flying overhead and launching missiles.

Meanwhile hundreds of Israeli troops fanned out along the Egyptian border on Thursday to search for remains of five comrades killed in the bombing of a military vehicle.

The five soldiers were killed on Wednesday when Palestinians blew up an Israeli armoured vehicle, the second such attack in two days.

In three days of rapidly escalating violence,11 Israeli soldiers and 26 Palestinians have been killed.

At least 235 Palestinians have been wounded.

Early on Thursday, Israeli forces pulled out of Gaza City following the biggest offensive in the area in years.

The military said it had completed its search for the body parts of six soldiers killed in the first bombing, a huge explosion that destroyed an armoured vehicle on Tuesday.

SHOTLIST

1. Various of burning tyres in the streets of Rafah

2. Car of one of the victims (Widad Ajrami) riddled with bullets

3. Various of blood stains on the seats

4. Various of bullet holes

5. Broken car windows

6. More bullet holes

7. Palestinian woman walking near one of the damage houses

8. Palestinian children standing inside damaged house

9. Pan of damaged house

10. Various of Israeli tank passing between buildings

11. One of the bodies being carried out of hospital

12. Palestinians carrying body and chanting slogans

Ramallah

13. Set up shot of Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat:

14. SOUNDBITE (English) Saeb Erekat, Palestinian Minister:

"It's a major escalation, a very big escalation. We believe what's happening in the camp, I think so far we have two thousand families that have become homeless and more than 300 homes have been destroyed and we think this is only the beginning. This is the beginning of the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip as a whole and this is consistent with Israeli governments in again destroying the peace process, destroying the Palestinian Authority and resuming full occupation."

15. More od Erekat

STORYLINE

Israeli troops fired on Hamas militants laying explosives along paths used by Israeli tanks in southern Gaza on Saturday, triggering a shootout that killed two members of the violent Islamic group and a bystander.

In pre-dawn fighting, troops fired on a group of armed militants laying explosives along paths traveled by Israeli tanks in the Salam neighbourhood of the Rafah refugee camp, the army and Hamas said.

Tariq Abu Hussein, 39, a well-known local field commander of the Hamas military wing, and another Hamas militant, Hussam Mughier, 26, were killed.

At least 10 people were wounded.

Witnesses said that several bystanders who came to take casualties to a hospital in their car were fired on by a tank and machine guns.

One woman in the car, 28-year-old Widad Ajrami, was killed and her husband and a brother-in-law were wounded.

The car was riddled with bullets and its seats were smeared with blood and littered with shards of glass.

An army spokeswoman said soldiers only shot at armed men and denied reports that troops fired a tank shell.

For more than a week, Israeli troops have fought pitched battles with Palestinian gunmen in an operation meant to search out and destroy tunnels used to smuggle weapons across the Egyptian border into southern Gaza.

So far, 14 Palestinians - among them two children and a woman bystander - have been killed since the operation began a week ago in the town of Rafah, and troops have uncovered and blown up three smuggling tunnels.

Israel's military has said it launched its new Gaza operation - the biggest in the coastal strip of territory in about six months - after it received intelligence warnings that Palestinians might be trying to smuggle more advanced weapons, like anti-aircraft missiles, through the cross-border tunnels.

Until now, the tunnels have been used to smuggle lighter weapons, like assault rifles and ammunition, from Egypt, the army says.

Throughout much of the last three years of fighting, Rafah and its refugee camp have been a daily battleground, with gunmen attacking army outposts along the border and clashing with soldiers searching for tunnels.

Frequently, the military bulldozes homes that it says are used by gunmen.

The UN Relief and Works Agency said earlier this week that 114 homes had been destroyed at the start of the military's new operation in Rafah, leaving 12-hundred and 40 people homeless.

Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat on Saturday put the figure higher, saying "so far, we have two-thousand families that have become homeless and more than 300 homes have been destroyed".

The human rights group Amnesty International called the destruction a "war crime".

SHOTLIST:

1. Various night shots of Israeli army bulldozer destroying houses at night, sounds of gunfire

2. Night shot of ambulances driving along road

3. Various of wounded man arriving at hospital being treated by doctors

4. Exterior of hospital

5. Various of wounded in hospital

6. Ambulance arriving

7. Various of dead Palestinian man (covered in sheet) being wheeled into morgue and put into refrigeration unit

8. Body being wheeled into morgue

9. Doctor showing dead Palestinians in refrigeration units

10. Various shots of aftermath of house demolition

STORYLINE:

Israeli tanks accompanied by attack helicopters invaded a refugee camp near the Gaza-Egypt border in the Gaza Strip late on Wednesday, killing four Palestinians.

Residents said around 25 tanks and several bulldozers entered the refugee camp next to the town of Rafah.

Palestinian gunmen shot at the soldiers, and an Apache helicopter fired back, killing a Palestinian.

Three others died in exchanges of fire, and seven were wounded in the violence, doctors said.

The Israeli army said the raid was meant to uncover weapons-smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian-Gaza border, and that four houses were demolished.

No tunnels were discovered but four soldiers were wounded when a bomb went off under a tank.

The area is the scene of daily clashes between armed Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, and Israel often sends in bulldozers to destroy buildings used by gunmen for cover.

SHOTLIST:

1. Various exteriors of World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse

2. Wide interior of aid in sacks in warehouse

3. Various of police holding back people who are charging towards food

4. Women outside waiting

5. Various of men picking up grain bags and walking out

6. Pan as man wheels grain and oil past on trolley

7. Various of people collecting aid in warehouse

8. Queue of people waiting

9. SOUNDBITE (English) Khaled Mansour, World Food Programme spokesman

"Many people in the Palestinian territories have lost their jobs. Tens of thousands of people. The agricultural products in the Palestinian territories are unable to proceed either to Israel or to other countries. Poverty has increased. About 50 per cent of the Palestinian population is living under the poverty line, earning less than 2 (US) dollars a day. What we will do over the coming eight months is provide 9000 tonnes of food to those half million people because we are trying to avoid the increasing rates, the alarming increasing rates of malnutrition and hunger among adults and among the children in the Palestinian territories."

10. Various of people carrying sacks out of warehouse

11. Men outside walking away with bags

STORYLINE:

The United Nations food agency has launched an emergency operation to help feed about half a (m) million Palestinians living in deteriorating conditions due to the Mideast conflict.

The World Food Programme plans to provide about 700-thousand tons of food, including flour, rice, sugar and vegetable oil to Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip until the end of the year.

In the last 20 months of conflict, an estimated 180-thousand Palestinians have lost their jobs because of tightened security measures which have severely restricted their movements.

The Palestinian Authority also suffered heavy losses in a recent military operation by Israel which has left it unable to run its social welfare programmes effectively.

Israeli troops entered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip following a series of Palestinian suicide bombings.

The programme will also provide food aid to about 10-thousand people in hospitals and social institutions, including children and the elderly.

According to a World Bank study, up to half of all Palestinians live below the poverty line, earning less than two U-S dollars a day.

The W-F-P says its eight-month operation is still short of food worth about 18 (m) million U-S dollars and an appeal for assistance has been made to donors.

SHOTLIST:

Ramallah, West Bank

1. Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo arriving at news briefing

2. Cameraman

3. SOUNDBITE (English) Yasser Abed Rabbo, Palestinian Information Minister

"Nothing can justify the demolition of Palestinian houses, the expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes, especially in this winter, and nothing can justify the attacks of the Israelis on Palestinian areas and Palestinian refugee camps. This kind (of act) should be condemned by the whole international community and we think that this kind (of act) is an invitation to another round of violence in the region and the Israelis will be responsible."

Jerusalem

4. Setup Israeli Government spokesman, Arie Mekel

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Arie Mekel, Israeli Government spokesman "It's not about retaliation. It's not about retaliating. It's about an attempt to create a better situation as far as our soldiers are concerned. As we saw yesterday our soldiers, who were there yesterday by agreement with the Palestinians, by any legal standard, are being attacked by terrorists who are simply trying to kill them and then go forward and kill Israeli civilians who live in the area. Our military has to do what it has to do to protect both civilians and the Israeli army, and this is what we have done last night."

6. Mekel walking towards camera

Rafah camp

7. Wide pan demolished houses close to border

8. Palestinian man walking through the rubble

9. Various Palestinians walking through the rubble and sifting through the wreckage

10. Man sitting round fire in shell of house

11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Voxpop

"I have nothing to say but to pray for God, there is not much to say. I know one thing, I have no house, no where to live, I can't even afford to rent a house. I hope God will help us. "

12. People round fire

13. Various of men walking through the rubble looking for belongings and salvageable material

STORYLINE:

Palestinian officials reacted angrily after a dozen Israeli bulldozers and armoured vehicles drove into the Rafah refugee camp, early on Thursday, and flattened 32 homes.

Local officials said hundreds were made homeless, after residents fled their homes in heavy rain .

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said nothing could justify the Israeli action and called upon the international community to condemn it.

Israeli Government spokesman Arie Mekel said the action was taken to save Israeli lives and Israel was entitled to protect its citizens.

The raid came after Wednesday's deadly assault, by Islamic militants, on an Israeli army post.

According to Israeli officials, eight assailants were involved in the attack.

Six remained on the Gaza side, to deliberately set off alarms on the high-security border fence, as a diversion.

The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility, saying the attack was partly a response to last week's Israeli seizure of a ship laden with 50 tons of Iranian-made weapons.

Last month, Hamas had announced a suspension of mortar attacks and suicide bombings in Israel, in compliance with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's truce call.

The Palestinian Authority denounced the Israeli raid as a "serious crime", aimed at sabotaging the US truce mission.

Earlier this week, American mediator Anthony Zinni had left the region on a hopeful note, saying both sides were trying to make a cease-fire work.

SHOTLIST:

++Night Shots++

1. Various of Rafah skyline with two explosions

2. Various of casualties (unknown if dead or injured) arriving and being taken into hospital on stretchers and gurneys

3. Various of casualty covered in blanket being wheeled into hospital on gurney

4. Pull out of exterior of hospital

5. Relatives gathering outside hospital

6. Ambulance arriving

7. Ambulances bringing casualty into hospital

8. Ambulances and men with stretchers in hospital compound

STORYLINE:

An Israeli helicopter fired three missiles at an unoccupied part of the surrounded Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border early on Tuesday, killing three people.

Hospital officials said at least two were militants, and seven civilians were wounded.

The Israeli military said the target was a group of armed Palestinians approaching Israeli forces.

Israeli bulldozers began levelling land in an Israeli-controlled area next to the camp, shortly after the strike.

Israeli tanks and troops have surrounded the camp, cutting it off from the rest of Gaza.

On Monday, residents were fleeing the camp, expecting a large-scale Israeli operation.

Israel Radio reported that troops were prepared to fight from house to house in the camp.

Israeli forces have entered the camp many times during more than three years of conflict, looking for tunnels they allege the Palestinians use to smuggle in weapons under the Egyptian border.

Last week Palestinians blew up an Israeli armoured vehicle on the border road next to the camp, killing five soldiers, leading Israel to declare that it would widen the buffer zone by tearing down houses in the camp.

VOICED BY LOUISE BATES

SHOTLIST:

Night shots

00:00 Wide of Israeli army bulldozer in Rafah camp, sounds of gunfire

00:08 Midshot bulldozer, sound of gunfire

00:13 Ambulances racing along road

00:16 Ambulance arriving at hospital

00:22 Body being brought in on stretchers

00:26 Armed Palestinian with wounded

00:28 bringing body in

00:31 going into cooler

00:34 door shutting

Day shots

00:38 Wide pan of damage and people looking

00:44 piece of metal

00:46 men carrying debris piece of metal

00:52 Various of damage

01:04 Man looking out on damage

01:08 Boys carrying debris

01:13 Woman looking out, pull back to wide of damage

01:24 VISION ENDS

SUGGESTED LEAD-IN:

Israeli tanks accompanied by attack helicopters invaded a refugee camp near the Gaza-Egypt border in the Gaza Strip late on Wednesday, killing four Palestinians.

The area is the scene of daily clashes between armed Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, and Israel often sends in bulldozers to destroy buildings used by gunmen for cover.

VOICE-OVER:

UPSOUND

It's hard to see - but the sound says it all.

An Israeli bulldozer at work in a Palestinian refugee camp, accompanied by the sound of gunfire.

Residents said around 25 tanks and several bulldozers entered the Rafah camp in the Gaza Strip overnight.

Palestinian gunmen shot at the soldiers, and an Apache helicopter fired back, killing a Palestinian.

Doctors said three others died in exchanges of fire and seven were wounded in the violence.

PAUSE: DOOR BEING CLOSED ON BODIES

Come daylight, Palestinians ventured out to view the damage.

More houses demolished, piles of earth and debris.

The Israeli army said they were searching for tunnels used for smuggling weapons under the Egyptian-Gaza border.

None were discovered but four Israeli soldiers were wounded when a bomb went off under a tank.

The Rafah camp has been a flashpoint of fighting in the past 30 months.

Israel often sends in bulldozers to destroy buildings used as cover by Palestinian gunmen.

According to the Red Cross, the Israeli army has demolished nearly 700 houses in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza since September 2000, making more than five-thousand Palestinians homeless.

SHOTLIST:

1. Wide pan over Rafah refugee camp

2. Bulldozer

3. Various of people walking among rubble with gunfire sound in background

3. Children

4. People walking across rubble

5. Two women

6. Wide shot widened camp

7. Various people attempting to salvage belongings

8. Elderly woman

9. Palestinians

10. SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Voxpop:

"I cannot understand how they're carrying out this destruction when the whole the world is watching."

11. Belongings

12. SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Voxpop:

"They destroyed everything, our homes and we have nothing else left."

13. Various Palestinians in Rafah

14. Palestinians trying to salvage food

15. Woman and boy

16. Crops on ground

17. Palestinian man looking at rubble

18. Various Palestinians and rubble

19. Various people in refugee camp

20. Man directing traffic through the camp

21. Mid shot road through Rafah

STORYLINE:

Israeli troops withdrew from Rafah refugee camp, early on Monday, leaving behind dozens of demolished homes, levelled land and residents despairing over how the destruction will be repaired.

Troops continued to operate in the Brazil area of the refugee camp.

The Palestinian neighbourhood of Tel Sultan was the focus point of an Israeli military sweep through the sprawling refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border.

Residents - many of whom were leaving for the first time since Israel launched its offensive - said the tanks pulled back in the direction of a Jewish settlement after midnight.

However, the six-day Israeli raid continued in other areas of the camp.

Wary residents who left their homes confronted streets and homes bulldozed into mounds of rubble, razed farms and greenhouses and sewage running through streets decorated with downed electric and telephone cables.

Israel's operation has led to sharp international and local criticism.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Yosef Lapid caused an uproar on Sunday when he said images of Israel's destruction in the Rafah refugee camp reminded him of his grandmother, who suffered Nazi atrocities during World War II.

Rumours of the destruction leaked out of the neighbourhood during the army's six day siege, but no one could enter or leave the area during the operation.

The water and sewer systems in the camp have been destroyed, Rafah mayor Saed Zourab said, adding it would take a long time to repair downed telephone and electric cables.

All the streets in the neighbourhood have been damaged, and some residents can't leave their homes because rubble blocks the door, he said.

Israel's "Operation Rainbow" was launched to uncover and destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border and round up militants, according to the army.

However, only one tunnel has been uncovered, while 41 Palestinians have been killed and dozens of homes destroyed.

The widespread destruction has raised questions in Israel and the world over the goals of the invasion - which was launched less than a week after 13 Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants.

Some critics said the campaign made little sense from a military standpoint.

Some said it was meant as revenge against the militants and to boost the morale of Israeli troops.

Others questioned why Sharon approved it, even though he is pushing for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

SHOTLIST:

Nightshots

1. Ambulance driving through streets

2. Injured boy being taken out of ambulance

3. Ambulance arriving in hospital

4. Injured youth being stretchered into hospital

5. Injured man being taken into hospital

6. Ambulance

7. Injured man being taken out of ambulance covered in blood

8. Bodies in morgue

9. Close up face of dead man

10. Relatives crowded round morgue

Dayshots

11. Various injured people being taken to ambulance

12. Ambulance reversing

13. Children on streets

14. Masked gunman holding bazooka

STORYLINE:

Israeli forces trying to demolish Palestinian weapon-smuggling tunnels in the Rafah refugee camp, were involved in a fierce gunbattle lasting several hours Friday.

It was the largest army raid in half a year in the camp, a frequent battlefield.

A teenager was among four Palestinians who were killed. A further 38 were wounded.

An Israeli soldier was also injured.

The Israeli raid, which began around midnight on Thursday night, was part of increased military activity in response to last weekend's suicide bombing that killed 20 Israelis in Haifa.

Media reports said the operation could last several days.

Troops have been enforcing a strict travel ban, confining Palestinians in the West Bank to their communities and blocking main roads in the Gaza Strip.

The Rafah raid was aimed at uncovering weapon-smuggling tunnels.

Armoured vehicles and attack helicopters swept into the camp on Gaza's border with Egypt, joined by special forces, including engineering units with dogs trained to find tunnels.

Gun battles erupted between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen and continued until after daybreak on Friday.

Palestinians said most of the casualties were caused when a helicopter fired a missile at a crowd.

The military said the missile targeted a group of gunmen.

Dr. Ali Mousa, director of Rafah's small Najar Hospital, said women and children were among the wounded. He did not have an exact breakdown of armed men and civilians.

Mousa said his hospital was overwhelmed by the large numbers of casualties.

He said many of the wounded required surgery, but that he has only one operating room and did not have enough medicine and other supplies.

Normally, serious cases are sent to hospitals in other towns. Those patients could not be transferred because of the Israeli travel restrictions, Mousa said.

Israeli military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel had intelligence warnings that Palestinians were planning to use tunnels to smuggle in anti-aircraft missiles - weapons that could have a strategic impact on the three-year conflict.

They said Palestinians were trying to gain possession of shoulder-held Stinger missiles that could shoot down the sort of attack helicopters that Israel often uses in Gaza, and could also threaten Israeli warplanes or civilian aircraft flying close to the coastal strip.