May 11, 2004

The IDF stages a major raid on Gaza City, meeting heavy resistance; Hamas and Islamic Jihad mbrs. detonate a roadside bomb, destroying an IDF armored personnel carrier (APC), killing 6 IDF soldiers (the highest IDF toll since 11/02); AMB, Islamic Jihad mbrs. take the soldiers’ remains. The IDF sends in massive reinforcements, vows to conduct house-to-house searches until the remains are found, bulldozing roads and water systems, cutting electricity, uprooting trees, crushing Palestinian cars, fatally shooting 8 Palestinians, wounding more than 120. Hamas officials, Muslim authorities, the PA, and International Comm. of the Red Cross unsuccessfully appeal to the Palestinian militants to release the remains. The IDF also imposes a curfew on, fires on residential areas of Ya‘bad nr. Jenin; demolishes 2 Palestinian homes in Rafah; conducts arrest raids in Bethlehem, Dura, Tulkarm, Yamun nr. Jenin. UNRWA reports that the IDF has demolished or damaged beyond repair 131 Palestinian homes in Gaza since 5/1, leaving more than 1,100 Palestinians homeless. (BBC, HA, MM, NYT 5/11; PSCT, VOI, VOP 5/11 in WNC 5/13; MM, NYT, PR, WP, WT 5/12; HA, JP, MA, QA, YA 5/12 in WNC 5/14; PCHR, WJW, WT 5/13; QA 5/13 in WNC 5/18; MEI 5/14)