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BEIT HANOUN - Israeli troops shot dead two women acting as human shields between soldiers and gunmen holed up in a mosque and killed a dozen other Palestinians on Friday, witnesses said.
The violence came on the third day of an Israeli assault on the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the largest operation it has conducted in the Gaza Strip in months, designed to put a stop to militants firing homemade rockets into Israel.
An Israeli air strike killed two Palestinian militants in a car on the outskirts of the nearby town of Jabalya, Palestinian security sources said. An army spokesman said the strike was aimed at two gunmen who had planted bombs near Israeli troops.
A separate Israeli missile strike later killed a senior commander of the Popular Resistance Committees who was walking near Beit Hanoun, Palestinian security sources said. The army said it was checking the report.
Earlier in Beit Hanoun, about 50 veiled women, answering an appeal broadcast on radio, marched on a mosque where about 60 Palestinian gunmen had holed themselves up to act as cover against Israeli troops who raided the town to find militants.
Reuters television footage showed Israeli forces opening fire and one of the women fall dead. At least 10 were wounded.
The Israeli army said it had fired at armed Palestinians and was investigating whether it had also shot the women. The army said it had film showing armed men among the women, which it described as human shields.
The footage filmed by Reuters showed no men among the crowds of women when the first shots were fired.
Israeli soldiers also killed a Hamas militant near Jabalya, a militant stronghold, during clashes that erupted between troops and Palestinian gunmen, as some 30 Israeli military tanks moved towards the town.
Earlier in the day, the Israel military killed four Hamas militants in an air strike in Gaza and two Palestinians during stone-throwing clashes with youths that erupted in the area.
Four members of a Hamas-led police force were injured in another air strike later in the Gaza town of Rafah, Palestinian medics said.
Militants from the Islamist group Hamas fired two rockets into southern Israel on Friday, causing no casualties.
"Bombardment for bombardment and blood for blood," Hamas, which heads the Palestinian government, said in a statement.
Palestinian gunmen, including some from Hamas, managed to flee the Beit Hanoun mosque. Moments later, its roof collapsed. The army said it would investigate the shootings of the women.
"We are very cautious about the issue of harming anyone uninvolved," the senior Israeli military source said of the mosque shootings.
"I think overall the operation is very successful. We will check to see if there was something wrong."
The army began a massive assault against militants in Gaza after several of them abducted an Israeli soldier in a raid inside the Jewish state in June.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, expressed defiance in the face of Israel's operation, and described its occupation of Palestinian territories as an act of "blind terror".
Since the start of the offensive four months ago more than 280 Palestinians have been killed, about half of them civilians. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Israel's Gaza offensive, one of its biggest against Palestinian militants, has further weakened any chance of peace talks, already minimal since Hamas won elections. Hamas is officially sworn to Israel's destruction.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian during a raid to detain militants. Elsewhere in the territory, soldiers killed a Palestinian during a clash with teenagers who threw stones and bombs at troops, doctors said.
- REUTERS
