Haaretz: Palestinians Killed Two Palestinian Children In Rafah Incident
Inside Track / Rafah is a nightmare

By Amir Oren Haaretz 21 May 2004
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/430200.html

...
When the procession with armed men in its midst set out in the direction of
the forces, (the commander of the Gaza Division, Brigadier General Shmuel)
Zakaii tried to speak with the community leaders in Rafah. The head of the
Liaison and Coordination Administration, Colonel Poli Mordecai, phoned
Nasser Saraj, the head of the Civil Committee in the city. Had the Liaison
and Coordination Administration sufficed, they would not have needed the
tank commander. Saraj, a respected individual, formerly the director-general
of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in the Palestinian Authority, listened
to Colonel Mordecai's pleas, but took no steps to prevent the disaster.

When men obeyed the calls over the loudspeakers to turn themselves in to the
IDF authorities (and to the intelligence people who wanted to question
them), they were confronted by members of the terror organizations, who
opened fire on them and killed two children. A senior officer in Gaza
reported yesterday that the IDF have in their possession pictures of this
incident, of Palestinians killing their children. He expressed amazement as
to why the army has refrained from publishing them.

As the procession approached the line of buildings behind which the IDF
tanks and APCs were located, the commanders feared that the mob would
overrun the forces and damage the vehicles; that from within the ranks of
the demonstrators, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles would be
launched at the armored vehicles. S., who bears the scar of a Faggot missile
that injured him in Lebanon, knew full well what an agile anti-tank weapon,
from an effective distance, can do to a tank. And he also knew what has not
been made public: The armored force towards which the demonstrators were
advancing, was not the most advanced force. Ahead of it, hidden by
camouflage, for observation and for sharpshooting and at the ready for an
additional operation, were teams from Egoz and the Golani elite unit. If the
demonstration was unwittingly to come between them and the armored force,
the fighters of the special operations unit and Egoz would have been
encircled. S., Zuckerman and Zakai would not have countenanced such a
situation in any case and certainly not when it involved their comrades at
arms. When the tank shells penetrated the abandoned building, the first of
the demonstrators had reached the other side of the structure, and were hit.

...