At least 28 Palestinians and three Israelis were killed in raging gunbattles in the Gaza Strip on Thursday during a massive Israeli raid that provoked some of the worst fighting in the impoverished area in months. In the latest bloodshed, at least seven Palestinians were killed when an Israeli tank shell landed on a group of people standing near the entrance to the Jabaliya refugee camp, Palestinian hospital sources said.
The Israeli raid, which started two days ago, intensified late Wednesday after a Palestinian rocket launched from northern Gaza killed two young children in the Israeli town of Sderot as families were celebrating the start of Sukkot, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.
Israeli radio said Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz had decided to carry out a large-scale military operation to halt Palestinian rocket attacks. It said the army was considering temporarily re-occupying the territory and could mobilise reserve troops.
Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority urged the international community to intervene at once and put an end to Israel's "massacres" in the Gaza Strip, according to an aide to the Palestinian leader.
The narrow streets of the impoverished Jabaliya camp, home to 100,000 people, resembled a battlefield and hospitals were put in emergency mode to treat the flow of casualties.
Dozens of Palestinians armed with assault rifles, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades hid in alleys, away from Israeli snipers posted on rooftops.
Loud explosions could be heard as troops and fighters engaged in intense exchanges of fire. The army destroyed at least seven houses and the outside wall of a school.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned that the Israeli operations had disrupted its operations and called on the Jewish State to guarantee the safety of its staff.
At least eight of the Palestinian casualties were armed fighters who clashed with Israeli troops near Jabaliya and the nearby town of Beit Hanun.
Another two Palestinian gunmen were shot dead by troops after they killed an Israeli settler woman and a soldier near the Jewish settlement of Alei Sinai.
The Palestinian victims, killed by snipers and tank shells in and around the Jabaliya camp which troops were trying to storm, were all believed to be unarmed civilians, including at least one teenager.
Two Palestinians teenagers were killed by Israeli gunfire in the Jabaliya refugee camp, Palestinian medical and security sources said.
The two were identified as Tamer Abu Shkayan, 14, and Yehia Hamad, 12.
Two more Palestinians died late Thursday after being hit by an Israeli tank shell in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, raising to four the number killed in the strike, hospital sources said.
The two men had been critically injured in the shelling and died on the way to hospital, medics told AFP.
The strike raised to 28 the total number of Palestinians killed in fierce fighting in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to the Palestinian hospital sources.
Close to 90 Palestinians have been reported wounded in the incursion, among them a cameraman who was in serious condition after being hit by gunfire.
Senior Hamas leader Said Siam said, "Our Mujahideen will only stop firing rockets if the aggression stops," he said.
Moreover, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday approved recommendations by top defence officials for a broadening of a deadly Israeli army operation in the northern Gaza Strip, army radio reported.
In the operation code-named "Days of Penitence", the army will carry out an "aggressive and ongoing activity" in Jabaliya refugee camp and the nearby town of Beit Hanun in a bid to halt the flow of Qassam rockets being fired at Israel by Palestinian fighters, it said, quoting a defence official.
Sharon was meeting with members of the Israeli security cabinet at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv to seek its approval of the measures, the radio said.
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