14 Palestinians die in bloody Gaza battle

At least 14 Palestinians were killed in gun battles with Israeli troops in one of the bloodiest days in Gaza in months.

The fiercest fighting took place in the Shajaiyeh neighbourhood of Gaza City. Twelve people, including the son of a prominent Palestinian leader and a senior Hamas activist, were killed and more than 40 were wounded, Palestinian doctors said.

In a separate raid in the Rafah area along the Gaza-Egypt border, troops killed two Palestinians, including a militant, as they searched for tunnels used for arms smuggling.

The forces demolished three houses and razed citrus and olive groves.

The fighting in Gaza City erupted before dawn and continued for several hours. By early afternoon, the troops pulled out, the army and witnesses said.

During the fighting, dozens of youths stood in the streets watching the battle as gunfire whizzed by.

Masked gunmen took up positions in front of a building and ordered civilians out of the area.

At one point, a gunman picked up a young schoolboy by his backpack and whisked him out of the battle zone.

Later in the day, the army blew up the house of a Hamas militant who was killed and sent tanks into the neighbourhood.

The dead Palestinians included 10 militants, Palestinian sources said.

They included Mohammed Hilles, 18, the son of Ahmed Hilles, the top leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction in Gaza, and senior Hamas activist Hani Abu Skhaila.

Hamas said Abu Skhaila had survived two previous Israeli attempts to kill him, including a missile strike on his car last June in which he suffered shrapnel wounds.

Hamas, which called Abu Skhaila “the great brave hero”, said he had participated in several deadly attacks on Israelis, including a suicide bombing last month that killed four people at a border checkpoint.

At least nine of the wounded were in critical condition, doctors said.

Hamas, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel over the past three years, vowed retaliation.

The group’s militant wing called on all of its cells to carry out “huge martyrdom operations”.

Thousands of people participated in funeral prayers later in the day. Masked men in military uniforms carried bodies on stretchers, while others fired machine guns into the air.

“God willing, our retaliation will be soon and (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon should prepare plastic bags to collect the remains of his soldiers,” said one of the gunmen.

The military said it had entered the area to search for militants who fired rockets at nearby Jewish settlements. It said the fighting broke out after anti-tank missiles were fired at Israeli tanks.

“There was great resistance by armed cells in a very densely populated area,” said Colonel Yoel Strick, a division commander in the Gaza Strip.