人質救出作戦 イスラエル軍、避難民援助車両でキャンプ侵入か

【パレスチナ自治区ＡＦＰ＝時事】パレスチナ自治区ガザ地区で行われた８日の人質の救出作戦について、複数の目撃者が９日、イスラエル軍がイスラム組織ハマスを混乱させる目的で、武装勢力らに扮（ふん）した兵士を避難民援助車両で中部ヌセイラットのキャンプ内に送り込んだと話した。（写真は、イスラエル軍による人質救出作戦で損傷した建物と散乱したがれきの中を移動する人々。パレスチナ自治区ガザ地区中部ヌセイラット避難民キャンプで）
　目撃者らは、武装勢力に扮したイスラエル兵が避難民援助を目的とした冷蔵トラックの中に潜んでいたと話している。ＡＦＰでは独自に確認はできていない。
　避難民の一人、アルダ・ハティブさんは、市場に向かう途中で冷蔵トラックと白い小型車から人が何人も出てきたとし、「その直後に、キャンプ内の民家や近隣一帯、路上から銃声と爆発音が聞こえた」とＡＦＰに話した。
　また、質解放作戦から人々の注意をそらすことを目的に「イスラエルの特殊部隊がパレスチナ援助車両を使ってキャンプに侵入したのだと分かった」と続けた。
　ＡＦＰは複数の目撃者から同様の証言を得た。多くが冷蔵トラックについて言及している。
　別の避難民男性は、「（車両から出てきた人たちは）ハマスやイスラム戦士のような服装をしていた。何人かはマスクを着けていた」と説明した。
　人質４人の生還にイスラエルでは喜びの声が上がった。一方のハマスは、パレスチナ人２７４人が死亡、６９８人が負傷したとし、救出作戦を「虐殺」と非難している。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2024/06/10-17:14）

A day after Israeli special forces rescued four hostages from Gaza, Palestinians recounted their panic during the intense gun battles and explosions that rocked the area and reduced buildings to rubble.
While Israelis have rejoiced at the safe return of the four captives, officials in Hamas-run Gaza decried a massacre in which they said 274 people were killed and 698 wounded in the crowded Nuseirat refugee camp.
Soon after the raid started around 11 am (0800 GMT) in Nuseirat's busy market area, bombs were raining down and turning the neighbourhood into smoke and flames, said Muhannad Thabet, a 35-year-old resident.
People were screaming -- young and old, women and men, he said by phone. Everyone wanted to flee the place, but the bombing was intense and anyone who moved was at risk of being killed due to the heavy bombardment and gunfire.
Houses were destroyed with their occupants inside. There were also large numbers of displaced people and shops, stalls and cars were on fire due to the bombing.
Israel had sent in a special forces team of troops, police and Shin Bet operatives who simultaneously raided two buildings to extract the hostages -- Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41.
They met little resistance in one, but heavy gunfire in the other and withdrew under attack with guns and rocket-propelled grenades to take the hostages to nearby helicopters, said military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.
Another military spokesman, Peter Lerner, told US network ABC that the forces came under fire from a 360-degree threat -- RPGs, AK-47s, explosive devices, mortar rounds. It was ... a war zone.
- 'No one could move' -
Eyewitnesses said the Israeli raid and retreat were covered by heavy air strikes as well as drone and tank fire.
Several told AFP they had seen bodies in the streets, which AFP could not independently verify.
As the fighting raged, the injured were taken to one of Gaza's hospitals, medics said.
The hospital was filled with martyrs and injured, and it was impossible to accommodate such a large number within minutes, said doctor Marwan Abu Nasser, an official at the Al-Awda health facility near the camp.
Of course, the hospital was under fire, and no one could move during the operation.
Watching from his roof, another local man, Mohammed Moussa, said he was terrified when he caught a glimpse of an Israeli tank on the street below with artillery fire crashing down.
I should be dead, marvelled the 29-year-old after the battle was over, leaving much of the area covered in debris and heavy dust that coated the streets in grey.
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
The militants also took about 251 hostages, of whom 116 hostages now remain in Gaza, although the army says 41 of them are dead.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 37,084 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the territory's health ministry.
- Troops 'disguised as Hamas' -
Several witnesses reported seeing Israeli forces burst out of a refrigerated truck, dressed in the garb of Palestinian militants in an apparent bid to confuse their enemies, although this also could not be independently verified.
Alaa al-Khatib, a displaced woman living in the camp, told AFP she was walking to a market when she saw people climbing out of a refrigerated truck and exiting a small white car.
They then took out a ladder and began climbing into an upper floor of a nearby building, she said.
Moments later, I heard gunfire and explosions from the houses, neighbourhoods and streets of the camp, she said.
I learnt that Israeli special forces had infiltrated the camp with Palestinian aid vehicles, all as a distraction to divert the attention of the people in the camp from the operation they came for, to liberate Israeli hostages.
Several other witnesses reported similar details to AFP, notably the presence of a refrigerated truck.
They were wearing clothes like Hamas and Islamic Jihad people, and some were masked, said another local man, Mahmoud al-Assar, 27.
Recalling the intensity of the battle that soon erupted and devastated several city blocks, Assar said that what happened in the camp was like an earthquake.