Fierce Gaza fighting kills 13 Palestinians and three Israelis

THIRTEEN Palestinians and three Israelis were killed yesterday in fierce gunbattles in the northern Gaza Strip after a wave of Israeli air strikes, the worst fighting in the impoverished area in months.

The Israeli raids followed a Palestinian rocket attack on Wednesday that claimed the lives of two young children in the Israeli town of Sderot as families filled the streets to celebrate the start of Sukkot, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.

It was the deadliest violence in the Gaza Strip since May when dozens were killed on both sides as Israel sought to destroy tunnels used by Palestinian militants to smuggle weapons from Egypt.

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.

Israeli public radio reported that the army was considering temporarily re-occupying the Palestinian territory and could mobilise reserve troops. The narrow streets of the impoverished Jabaliya refugee camp, which is home to 100,000 people, resembled a battlefield and hospitals were put in emergency mode to treat the flow of casualties.

Dozens of militants armed with assault rifles, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) hid in alleys, away from Israeli snipers posted on rooftops.

Loud explosions could be sporadically heard as troops and militants engaged in intense exchanges of fire. At least seven houses and the outside wall of a school were destroyed by the army.

Israeli troops first launched a massive raid on the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday in a bid to stop the firing of the so-called Qassam rockets, named after the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas.

It intensified after two Israeli children were killed on Wednesday in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, just across the Gaza border.

At least five of the Palestinian casualties were armed militants who clashed with Israeli troops near the Jabaliya camp and Beit Hanun.

Another two Palestinian gunman were shot dead by troops after they opened fire on an Israeli woman near the Jewish settlement of Eli Sinai.

An army spokeswoman said troops had caught up with another militant who had fled the scene of the attack and killed him.

Israeli public radio said there was another Israeli fatality in the Eli Sinai attack.

The other Palestinian victims, killed by snipers and tank shells in and around the Jabalyia refugee camp which troops were trying to storm, were all believed to be unarmed civilians, including at least one teenager.