British MPs shot at in Gaza
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-20 09:59

Three British parliamentarians have come under gunfire from the Israeli army during a UN-coordinated visit to a battered refugee camp in southern Gaza, one of them says.

An Israeli army spokesman said it was looking into the account of the shooting at Rafah, a militant stronghold where troops launched a six-day offensive last month which the United Nations said rendered 575 Palestinians homeless.

Baroness Northover of the Liberal Democrat party said she and two other lawmakers had visited Rafah on Friday with a UN convoy to observe the battered camp.

Northover, spokeswoman on International Development in the House of Lords, the upper house of the British parliament, said they suddenly heard a burst of machine gunfire from the direction of an army observation tower in front of them.

"A UN official who was supervising us told us to quickly return to the vehicles because we were being shot at," she said. "He said they were probably firing warning shots. We had come down there in clearly marked UN vehicles with U.N. flags on them."

She said Palestinian children had been running around and that the half-dozen British and UN officials were the only adults present. She said the shots had to have come from the tower because nearby there was only a wall and wasteland.

"Suddenly there was another shot over my head," she said. "It shot the side of a house and a bit of it came down the wall beside me. I knew about at that point they were shooting at us."

"We got to the car, having to come around the vehicles. I was between the vehicles and the observation post and at that point I thought there was a strong likelihood I would get shot at again, but it didn't happen and we got in the vehicles."

The army spokesman said the delegation had not coordinated its visit with Israel's security forces or foreign ministry and that the army had only on Saturday received an official complaint on the incident.

"The army will continue to check the allegations even though until now the incident was unknown," the spokesman said.

Baroness Northover said she and the other parliamentarians would lodge an official complaint to the Israeli government when they returned to Britain on Monday.

Both Israeli troops and Palestinian militants have been accused of firing at diplomatic convoys touring flashpoint areas in the West Bank and Gaza several times since a Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.

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