More than 140 injured during nine-hour raid on refugee camp

ISRAELI forces killed 11 Palestinians, including some torn apart by a tank shell, when troops stormed a Gaza Strip refugee camp yesterday after a suicide bomber killed 15 people on an Israeli bus.

More than 140 Palestinians were wounded during the nine-hour Israeli raid, part of a spasm of violence that has battered US hopes of calming the 29-month-old conflict ahead of a possible war on Iraq.

Israel's army launched the Gaza operation just hours after the first Palestinian suicide bombing in two months ripped through a bus packed with high school students in the port city of Haifa. A 14-year-old American girl was among the dead.