MIDDLE EAST: While Israel held a series of funerals for the six soldiers who died in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighbourhood on Tuesday, when their armoured personnel carrier was blown up by a mine, troops searched on their hands and knees on the sandy border strip separating southern Gaza from Egypt for the remains of five more soldiers who died in a similar incident on Wednesday, when their APC was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Egypt also allowed Israeli troops to cross the border and search in its territory.
Some of the heaviest fighting was taking place just a few hundred meters from where the soldiers were sifting the sand, in Rafah refugee camp, where seven Palestinians were reported killed in one Israeli missile strike. Most of the dead were gunmen, but a 15-year-old boy was also among the fatalities. The Palestinian death toll over the last three days is estimated at almost 30, most but not all of them gunmen.
Israeli troops pulled out of the Zeitoun area early yesterday morning, after a behind-the-scenes deal - involving the Palestinian Authority and Egypt - was secured for the return by Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups of the remains of Tuesday's dead soldiers for burial. Many roads were torn up and buildings in the neighbourhood reduced to rubble - a consequence of the original blast, of booby-trap bombs planted by Palestinians to thwart soldiers who then searched for remains, and of explosives used by Israeli troops as they moved from house to house and in some cases blew up what they said were weapons factories. Thousands of Palestinians shouted for revenge at funerals for their fatalities in Zeitoun.
Israel's Defence Minister, Mr Shaul Mofaz, said both blasts had occurred while soldiers were en- gaged in "legitimate" and vital operations - destroying Hamas weapons factories in Zeitoun and searching for arms smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border. He said Israel would "not flee from Gaza" and it would continue to send in soldiers when targets could not be hit from the air.
The Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, called the Israeli activity "a military crime" and urged international intervention. He said the Palestinians would not be deterred from their goal of independence, and would yet reach Jerusalem, no matter how many "martyrs" fell victim on the way.
Mr Saeb Erekat, the former chief Palestinian peace negotiator, said Israeli society should ask itself "what are their soldiers doing on the streets of Gaza."
The Israeli army chief of staff, Gen Moshe Ya'alon, rejected any comparison between Gaza and south Lebanon, from where Israel pulled out under fire four years ago, and argued that Israel would have to confront enemies in Gaza who threatened adjacent sovereign Israel.
Israeli newspapers yesterday carried articles savaging Gaza settlers and their supporters for perpetuating frictions that led to the soldiers' deaths, a charge emphatically denied by settler spokes- men. The Peace Now movement is planning a mass protest on Saturday night in favour of withdrawing from Gaza. Most opinion show that close to two-thirds of Israel support a pull-out.