Silence prevailed in the place.  Nothing could break through except the sound of Israeli tanks and bulldozers that filled the site with destruction and damage.  This was in the south of Rafah, on the 16 Kilometer-long border with Egypt.

The Gate of Salah-Eddin, or the “Gate of Death” as the Palestinians at Block C in Rafah refugee camp call it, doesn’t have any more signs of life.  A human being may find it difficult to imagine two catastrophes happening to him, but that was the actual case.  In Rafah, the impossible became real. Hundreds of Palestinian families now live their second compulsory deportation; the first one was in 1948.  Yet the current one is more severe, and much more painful.

It was 1:30 a.m. on Friday 10/1/2002.  A date that will remain engraved in the memories of the Palestinians whose houses were demolished.  Four Israeli bulldozers protected by three military tanks entered block C, which is very close to Salah-Eddin Gate, and uprooted life from its foundations.  Death and destruction were planted.  In a few minutes, 73 houses were demolished, housing 130 families, and more than 700 people found themselves homeless.  They were out in the streets facing a mysterious future.

Even the mosques, places of worship, were not excluded.  The occupation forces bombarded them, offering another violation of basic human rights. Moreover, the Israeli forces swept hundreds of acres of agricultural land, cutting and uprooting olive and citrus trees.

On the other side of the city, near the town center, more than two hundred tents were made, clear evidence of the cruelty of the occupation.  Who will have mercy for those “new” refugees?  Who will compensate them for losing their homes, the basic foundation for a decent life?

There is no doubt that the military operation that was carried out by the Israeli army in Rafah on 10^th January 2002 represented a war crime, at a time when the human conscious was not present.