[Brown:] With the Iraqi and the Middle East dominating headlines you can lose sight of a war going on elsewhere and it is a war. For the last few days Israeli forces have been attacking and bulldozing what they call militant positions in a refugee camp in Gaza. Upwards of 100 homes bulldozed. The Israelis say the homes are being used by smugglers and snipers. The Palestinians say it is just another example of collective punishment meted out by the Israelis. Today a State Department spokesman said there are better ways to proceed than by knocking down the houses of innocent people. The condemnation, however, went no further and there are no outward signs the Israelis have a mind to change tactics. The Palestinian side says at least 20 people have been killed in attacks so far, including children. Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Matthew Chance.
[Chance:] A tank's eye view of the biggest Israeli incursion in years in Gaza Strip. The Rafa refugee camp near the Egyptian border is densely populated. Still it is pounded from the ground and the air. Essential, Israel says, to destroy secret tunnels militants use as gateways to smuggle weapons.
[Maj Sharon Feingold, Israeli Army:] We are adamant in combating this phenomena of smuggling. We have information that the Palestinians have been trying to smuggle very large caliber weapons into the Gaza Strip, specifically speaking about Katyusha rockets. We know they have managed to smuggle RPGs into the Gaza Strip, RPGs which are then turned against our forces patrolling the border.
[Chance:] But the humanitarian cost is high. Doctors at the tiny hospital in Rafa cut off by the fighting say they're struggling to cope. Amongst the dead are civilians and at least two children. A brother and a sister just 10 and 11. They were killed in a rocket attack. Civilians have been attempting to flee the fighting. But many are now caught in a strict Israeli curfew and can't leave. Others have had their homes destroyed by Israeli bulldozers and are surviving in the rubble.
[Lionel Brisson, U.n. Relief Works Agency:] Most of the people are affected by those operations have nothing to do with what is happening in terms of the fight fighting between the sign and the Palestinian groups.
[Chance:] It is what the U.N. and human rights groups are calling collective punishment. Now being meted out, they say, by Israel. Well, Palestinian officials are calling for more international pressure to be brought down on Israel, for it to stop what it is doing in the Rafa refugee camp. For its part, though, Israel is shrugging off the criticisms saying its force will stay just where they are in that refugee camp until they have achieved their objectives, closing those gateways to terrorism into the Gaza Strip Aaron.
[Brown:] Any sense, is it possible yet to gauge any sense of Israeli public opinion on this?
[Chance:] Well, certainly many Israelis will be looking at this with disdain because the country is divided about whether Israel should stay in the Gaza Strip, its forces, its Jewish settlers or whether they should withdraw. The human cost that this operation is inflicting on ordinary Palestinians will be seen by people in Israel who want Israel to withdraw as further reason for them to do that. And so this is something which has not been or won't be accepted by many people in Israel, Aaron.
[Brown:] Isn't it sort of the common sense that one of the things Israeli government is doing in this is in some sense preparing the ground for its own withdrawal, to try and create as much of a zone of protection after its withdrawal as it can?
[Chance:] That is certainly a possibility. Ariel Sharon has personally committed, even though his own political party rejected this at the moment, but he's committed to withdrawing Israeli forces and Jewish settlers out of the Gaza Strip. Of course, his forces invaded it. Israel's forces invaded it over the past 24 hours. But there's not necessarily a contradiction there. Because the prime minister has gone on record as saying that when-if Israel does leave the Gaza Strip it wants to weaken the Palestinian militants here as much as possible and certainly on the face of it, that's what the operation is intended to do in the Gaza Strip, Aaron.
[Brown:] Matt, thank you. Good to see you again. Matthew Chance in Gaza. Tonight, coming up, information that could save lives. Should interrogators do whatever it takes to get the answers they need? Even if that means torture? Torture by Americans? A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.