Israeli forces kill 10 Palestinians in Gaza

GAZA STRIP - Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships have swept into the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip sparking a gunbattle and killing 10 people.

The army said the troops met fierce resistance in the three-hour pre-dawn incursion, which it said was intended to root out militants responsible for attacks on troops in Gaza in a more than two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence.

Armed men fought the Israeli troops in fierce street battles but it was unclear how many of the dead were gunmen involved in the fighting and how many were civilians.

Palestinian residents said that of the nine men and one woman, a teacher employed by the United Nations, who were killed in the Israeli raid, eight were civilians and two were policemen involved in the fighting.

But the militant Islamic group Hamas said in a statement issued on Hizbollah's al-Manar television in Beirut that six of the dead were Hamas members, including the dead woman. It said two were from its Izz-el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades military wing.

Palestinian residents said at least three of those killed were hit by a missile fired from a helicopter gunship. The Israeli army said the missile hit a group of gunmen.

The high death toll and the timing of the assault, during the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, enraged Palestinians and tens of thousands attended the unusually large funeral for the 10 victims.

Mourners, some of them masked, called for revenge as the bodies were carried through the camp's narrow streets on men's shoulders.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed an Islamic Jihad militant in an exchange of fire during a raid of a village near Jenin late on Friday, Palestinian medical sources said.

Friday's bloodshed was sure to fuel more violence despite the United States' calls for calm as it prepares for possible war on Iraq.

FIERCE BATTLE

"It is a new massacre. What happened is a continuation of the massacres against the Palestinian people," Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"This is Israeli terrorism against our children, our women and our holy shrines from Rafah (in southern Gaza) to Jenin (in the West Bank). Isn't what they are doing daily terrorism?"

In New York, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement demanding the Israeli army exercise restraint and "refrain from the excessive and disproportionate use of deadly force in civilian areas."

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said it deplored the deaths of its local staff, including the female teacher and a man employed as a janitor at an UNRWA school.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana accused Israel of using "excessive force" in the raid.

The army said most of the dead were gunmen killed during a fierce battle with Israeli forces who came under attack from Palestinian anti-tank grenade and automatic gunfire.

Brigadier Yisrael Ziv, the Israeli commander for Gaza, said troops entered the camp to arrest three militants behind attacks on Israeli troops and to destroy their leader's house.

Palestinian witnesses said soldiers, along with 25 tanks and several helicopters, thrust into Bureij under cover of darkness, raking the area with fire as they entered the camp.

Palestinian gunmen returned fire and a helicopter fired a missile into a street, killing at least three people and splattering a nearby wall with blood, witnesses said.

"It was as if the doors of hell were opened in our camp by the helicopters and the tanks," said 20-year-old resident Mohammed Al-Maqadama. "They have made this a bloody Eid."

"LOT OF RESISTANCE"

Asked why the troops had launched the raid on a Muslim holiday, army spokeswoman Sharon Feingold said: "We go after them (militants) whenever we have intelligence."

"They don't respect our holidays. They attacked on Passover. There were more attacks during Ramadan," she said, referring to suicide bombings by Palestinian militants this year during Passover, which marks the Jews' biblical exodus from Egypt.

Ziv said resistance had been fierce and the army believed it had hit "armed terrorists."

"We fired one shell from a helicopter at four armed men," he said. "We came upon a lot of resistance and the forces fired at armed gunmen. We identified 12-14 at whom we fired. At times the battle was fought at very close range, 10 yards. They used Kalashnikov rifles and grenades and anti-tank shells."

A doctor at the local hospital said the 10 Palestinians killed included two pairs of brothers, and three men from one family. All the dead were in their 20s and 30s.

Doctors said 12 Palestinians were wounded in the violence. The army said one soldier was slightly wounded.

At least 1,705 Palestinians and 668 Israelis have been killed since the uprising began in September 2000 after a deadlock in negotiations for a final peace treaty.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: The Middle East