Israel Continues House Demolitions

Israeli forces destroyed eight Palestinian houses in predawn raids in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including the home of a Palestinian who was killed as he opened fire near a Jewish settlement eight months ago, witnesses said.

The raid left 32 people homeless, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger.

Shooting erupted between the Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen as tanks and armored bulldozers moved into the Shijaia neighborhood east of Gaza City. One Palestinian was seriously hurt, Palestinian officials said.

Israel hopes that demolishing the homes of accused terrorists will deter suicide bombers.

Three houses were destroyed in Shijaia, two in Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza and three in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said.

The houses in Maghazi belonged to the Shehada family, seven of whose members were detained in an Israeli raid Tuesday.

One of the houses razed in Shijaia belonged to the family Osama Helles, who was shot dead by troops as he carried out an ambush near a Jewish settlement in Gaza last November in which he killed an Israeli woman and wounded three other people.

Witnesses said soldiers planted explosives and blew the house up.

The army said it had destroyed Helles's house as part of "counter-terrorist measures." Two nearby houses were wrecked by the explosion, which also damaged several other buildings.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority Thursday denounced Israel's decision to maintain control over a holy site and small airport in the West Bank, saying it amounts to annexation and violates interim peace agreements.

On Wednesday, Israel's Security Cabinet said it would keep control over Rachel's Tomb and Kalandia Airport, placing them inside a security zone around Jerusalem made up of walls, fences and roadblocks.

Rachel's Tomb in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem, is revered by Jews as the burial place of the biblical matriarch. Even after Israel withdrew from Bethlehem as part of a peace accord in 1995, Israeli troops maintained control of the enclave. It has been a flashpoint of fighting.

The Cabinet's decision is a "new crime against the Palestinian people, their Christian and Muslim holy places," the Palestinian Authority said in a statement.

Yasser Arafat's top aide appealed for political unity on Thursday as the Palestinian president sought to reassert his authority after his government resigned to avoid being ousted by parliament.

Arafat accepted the government's resignation on Wednesday to avoid the humiliation of it losing a confidence vote in parliament, but his inability to rally support in the assembly and his own Fatah movement dealt a heavy blow to his authority.

Arafat, now embarrassed by his own parliament, dismissed as irrelevant by Israel and largely sidelined by the United States, has 14 days to form a government. He faces presidential and legislative elections on January 20.

However, the showdown with parliament did not directly endanger Arafat's political survival, and he appears poised for re-election in January.

As part of his wrangling with legislators Wednesday, Arafat set Jan. 20 as the day for presidential and parliamentary elections. However, there were uncertainties Thursday about whether the vote would take place.

Palestinian officials have said they could not conduct elections under Israeli occupation. Tayeb Abdel Rahim, an Arafat adviser, reiterated Thursday that ahead of the vote, Israeli troops have to withdraw to positions they held before the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in Sept. 2000.

The international community "should act immediately to guarantee an Israeli withdrawal," Abdel Rahim said Thursday.

Israel says it can only withdraw troops if there is calm. "Let them (the Palestinians) stop terrorist activity, let them stop condoning terror, and then they can have elections," said Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "The terror is preventing free elections."

The army denied deliberately demolishing homes in Rafah but said heavy vehicles searching for tunnels used for arms smuggling may have damaged some "structures" — suggesting they may have brought some houses down unintentionally.

Helles's mother, Khawla, said the troops gave the family 10 minutes to vacate the building.

"All we were able to take out was a few important family documents," she said. "A house where we lived for 30 years was turned to rubble...I lost one son and now we have lost our house."

Her husband, Mohammed, said that when the soldiers entered the house they asked for Osama Helles by name and he said his son was dead.

"But they responded with: 'Is he dead or a martyr?'" he said, using the term Palestinians use for those killed in battle.

Eleven-year-old Salman Helles, the brother of the dead militant, said he snatched up his book bag and books before his home was demolished but had no time to gather anything else. "It's all gone," he said.