Palestinians picked up sleeping children and ran through the dark to find shelter in back streets or a hospital on Wednesday after Israeli forces raided a Gaza Strip refugee camp on a demolition mission. "I was in the bathroom. The ceiling collapsed on me. I survived by a miracle," said mother Wafa Abu Awad, a resident of the Khan Younis refugee camp.

The raid by tanks and helicopters followed the fatal shooting by a Palestinian militant of an Israeli soldier guarding a nearby Jewish settlement on Tuesday.

The Israeli army said it had "destroyed two empty buildings which served terrorists as shooting posts and shelter."

Palestinian security sources and residents said a building was booby-trapped and blew up as Israeli troops retreated. The structure collapsed on small houses as people returned to them, killing one man and injuring six others.
An army spokeswoman said the building referred to by the Palestinians had been dynamited. "But there were explosives around the (other) houses planted by Palestinians," she said.

Witnesses said at least 15 houses were destroyed or damaged.

Hajar Abu Laws sat on the rubble of her house, striking her head repeatedly with hands in anger and grief.

"I wish they had bombed my body and torn it into pieces and they did not destroy my house," the woman told Reuters.

Residents and security sources said Israeli soldiers in up to 20 tanks bellowed through megaphones for residents to leave.

"There were two helicopters in the sky. They started firing their machine guns on houses, in the streets, and sliced through the electricity wires. The whole refugee camp was thrown into darkness," said camp resident Salim Abu Amouna.

Two hours after the raid ended, dozens of families returned to check on their homes. "They broke my bicycle," said 5-year-old Khamis Abu Odeh as his father dug it out.

Wednesday's raid rattled an Israeli-Palestinian security plan agreed on Sunday requiring Israeli forces to ease military restrictions in Gaza and the West Bank city of Bethlehem in return for Palestinian police clamping down on attackers.

"In Bethlehem it was possible to deploy anew," army chief spokeswoman Brigadier Ruth Yaron said. "But ... in Gaza we see in recent days no sign of an attempt to preserve quiet."

The "Gaza-Bethlehem First" plan is seen as a test of chances for Israeli military withdrawals from other West Bank cities and establishing a lasting cease-fire.

Palestinians launched an uprising against Israeli occupation in September 2000 after peace talks hit an impasse.

"The Gaza-First (plan) can go to hell," some men shouted in the Khan Younis district hit by the Israeli incursion.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian children scavenge around the rubble of a five-story apartment building destroyed by Israel army explosives early Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2002, in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. On Tuesday, a Hamas sniper firing from the camp killed an Israeli soldier guarding nearby Jewish settlements, in what the Islamic militant group said was an attempt to disrupt a truce. In response, Israeli troops blew up this building and a six-story building in what the army said was an operation to prevent gunmen from firing on nearby Jewish settlements. A 24-year-old Palestinian was killed in the strike. (AP Photo/Jacqueline