Israeli troops raid Gaza, 12 Palestinians killed

8.30am - By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI

GAZA - Twelve Palestinians, including a two-year-old boy, were killed on Thursday when Israeli forces thrust into a Gaza neighbourhood in a sweep for wanted militants shortly after the release of a Middle East peace "road map".

The tank and infantry raid sent a strong signal to a "Quartet" of US-led mediators and to the new Palestinian government that Israel would press ahead with such operations despite the new proposal to end 31 months of bloodshed.

Residents of the Shijaia neighbourhood outside Gaza City said Israeli forces backed by helicopter gunships laid siege to the family home of a militant from the Islamic group Hamas and demolished the four-storey building after a fierce gun battle.

Hamas and an armed offshoot of the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and new reformist Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas claimed responsibility for a Tel Aviv suicide bombing that killed three people on Wednesday.

Arafat told reporters the pre-dawn Gaza incursion was a "massacre" and Israel's answer to the peace plan presented on Wednesday by the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia and rejected by Palestinian militants.

Israeli officials say they will not change the way they confront an uprising for statehood until the Palestinians show they are cracking down on militants as required by the road map.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, on a visit to Madrid, sounded a note of caution to both sides at the start of a trip to Europe and the Middle East to promote Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

"We've got to get beyond this period of suicide bombings and retaliatory actions or other defensive actions that are taken...," Powell told a news conference. "We can't let these sorts of incidents immediately contaminate the road map."

The Gaza raid targeted Youssef Abu Heen and his two brothers, all Hamas men whom the Israeli army said had been involved in organising "terror attacks" on Israelis.

Israeli Brigadier General Gadi Shamni said soldiers surrounding the house called on the militants to give themselves up but the men responded with gunfire. Hospital officials said the three brothers were killed in the ensuing gun battle.

Hamas said in a statement: "We are using a legitimate weapon to confront the Zionist aggression -- the weapon of resistance -- and it will not be dropped as long as occupation exists."

Ahmed Ayyad, a blacksmith, said his two-year-old son, Amir, was killed by a bullet to the head as the toddler stood near a window facing Israeli troops.

"I could not help him," Ayyad said, choking back tears at the local morgue. "What road map? It is nonsense...the Israelis do not want peace -- you can ask my son."

Witnesses said six of the dead were civilians, including a 13-year-old boy and a 17-year-old, and six were militants. Hospital officials said at least 70 people were wounded.

Shamni said gunmen had fired on troops from positions in houses near the Abu Heen home. Israeli military sources said eight soldiers were wounded.

Earlier in the West Bank, two gunmen were killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers near the village of Yatta, residents said.

At least 2033 Palestinians and 737 Israelis have been killed in the conflict that erupted in September 2000.

The peace proposal calls for a series of confidence-building steps, including a halt to Palestinian violence and the suspension of Israeli settlement building on occupied land, leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005.

Hamas and other groups have vowed to keep up suicide bombings in defiance of Abbas, a moderate who took office on Wednesday after months of US efforts to sideline Arafat.

Israel said Powell was expected to arrive for talks on May 8. Palestinian officials said he would meet Abbas but not Arafat, whom Washington says is an obstacle to peace. Arafat denies fomenting violence.

The EU said on Thursday its foreign policy chief Javier Solana would leave on May 11 for a week-long visit to the Middle East to promote the road map.

Israeli security authorities said Wednesday's bombing in a nightclub on Tel Aviv's beachfront promenade was carried out by a British Muslim they identified as Asif Mohammed Hanif, 21.

Hanif's brother told Britain's Sun tabloid: "He was just a big teddy bear -- that's what people said about him...If he did do that, it was wrong, but I can't believe it."

A second Briton was to have blown himself up too, but he dropped his explosive device and fled, security officials said.

- REUTERS