UN Agency Head 'Horrified' by Gaza Destruction  

GAZA CITY, 23 July 2006 — The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees Karen Abu Zeid said yesterday she was "a bit horrified" by the extent of the destruction caused by the Israeli Army in the Gaza Strip.

"I'm a bit horrified by it," she said during her visit to the deserted Mughazi refugee camp, hard-hit by an Israeli incursion which was launched on Wednesday as part of a wider operation begun in late June.

The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides work, food and funds for hundreds of thousands of refugees living in the coastal Palestinian territory.

"We're horrified following the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) for the past week ... to see what the destruction is from what they've done," she told reporters, accompanied by the local UNRWA chief John Ging. "We're pretty depressed, we're pretty upset." She said that "16 people were killed here in Mughazi over the past days, 125 wounded, there are 80 families that are now without houses.

"So many people will be affected for the next months and years to come...

"We don't quite understand why every economic venture has to be destroyed," she said outside a demolished textile factory in the heart of the refugee camp.

"The main economic backbone of Gaza, bit by bit, is being dismantled or destroyed. I think we've gone back many years."

At least 106 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have now been killed in the impoverished territory since Israel launched its offensive with the aim of retrieving a missing soldier.

Meanwhile, fighter groups in the Gaza Strip agreed yesterday to stop firing missiles at Israel at midnight, saying they hope Israel will follow suit and stop attacks against them, senior Palestinian officials said.

The unilateral cease-fire is aimed at ending the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, the officials said on condition of anonymity because the agreement was reached at a closed meeting.

The agreement was reached in Gaza City following meetings sponsored by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh aimed at finding a way out of the crisis in Gaza, the officials said. Several Palestinian groups attended, including Haniyeh's Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have been blamed for many of the rocket attacks on southern Israel, the officials said.

The Israeli Defense Forces said it had no immediate comment about the cease-fire.

A 70-year-old man was wounded yesterday morning when the Israeli tanks positioned north of Gaza Strip opened heavy fire toward civilian houses near Abu Saffeya area, witnesses and medical sources said.

The sources said that Attiya Al-Sawarkah was hit with shrapnels all over his body and is in a serious condition.

In southern Gaza Strip, Israeli artillery continued its shelling of open areas forcing hundreds of Palestinian families to leave their homes mainly from Al-Showka area.

Palestinian Minister of Interior Said Siam said yesterday that "the problem with the issue of the captured soldier lies not in the Palestinian resistance but in the Israeli insistence to make the Palestinian people kneel down."

Siam's remarks came during a short visit to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as he called the world "to look at the Israeli aggression in Palestine and Lebanon with two eyes rather than one."