Deadly Battles in the Mideast

Hours after receiving a new plan for peace in the Middle East, Israel on Thursday sent its forces into the Gaza Strip and West Bank in a day of bloody confrontation that left at least 14 Palestinians dead, including a 2-year-old boy.

It was the highest death toll in a single day for the Palestinians in months and some of the most intense fighting since the intifada began 31 months ago. The violence made reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians seem as distant as ever despite the latest U.S.-backed “road map” to peace.

Palestinian officials accused the Israeli government of trying to undermine the peace plan and the government of Mahmoud Abbas, who was sworn in Wednesday as the first Palestinian prime minister. Abbas is perceived as a moderate who advocates an end to Palestinian armed struggle.

“Less than 12 hours after the road map was delivered, and less than 24 hours after the new government took office, Israel is back to its criminal operations,” said Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister. He called on the authors of the road map -- the U.S., United Nations, European Union and Russia -- to intervene.

David Baker, a spokesman for the Israeli government, said the incursion into Gaza was to capture suspected terrorists and had nothing to do with the peace initiative.

“It’s not a matter of bad timing. It’s a matter of Israel taking steps to thwart the same kind of terror that has left so much devastation in Israel in 31 months, including 89 suicide attacks,” Baker said.

“If Israel has information that there are certain individuals who are planning on carrying out hostile intentions against Israel, then what are we expected to do? Are we expected to sit back and wait till they get to our backyard? No, we’re going to go to their front door.”

The military said its target was three brothers who were senior members of Hamas, a radical group that carried out a deadly suicide attack in Tel Aviv this week. Three were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a popular seaside cafe, in an apparent effort to also embarrass Abbas, who was sworn in hours earlier.

Under cover of darkness, Israeli soldiers thrust into Gaza City in tanks and armored vehicles and laid siege to the Shijaya neighborhood about 2 a.m. Hundreds of residents were engulfed in the ensuing street battle, a shootout between Israeli soldiers and armed Palestinian militants who some said were summoned to the area by the loudspeakers of a mosque. The fighting trapped people in their homes and left some victims of the crossfire lying bleeding and untended -- sometimes for hours -- in streets and buildings that ambulances could not safely reach, witnesses said.

By the end of the afternoon, the three wanted men were dead, according to the Israelis. An Israeli military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the three brothers -- Yusuf, Iman and Mohammed abu Hein -- had been linked to major terrorist attacks over the years, including deadly suicide bombings in Jerusalem and the city of Ashkelon in 1996.

The men were also allegedly involved in launching rockets into Israel. A cache of ammunition, grenades, rifles and explosive devices was found in their home after the three men were killed, said Maj. Sharon Feingold, a military spokeswoman.

Also dead were nine other people, including the 2-year-old, shot in the head, and a 13-year-old youth, according to hospital officials. More than 60 people were injured. The Israeli army said nine of its soldiers were also wounded in the fray.

“This is too much force and firepower for someone intending to arrest” suspects, Abdel Razek Majaydeh, the Palestinian general security commander in Gaza, told the Israeli online newspaper Ynet. “Two [children] have been killed in this operation, and others, innocent civilians, were only trying to get away from the scene.”

In another clash Thursday, near the city of Hebron in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers fatally shot two armed Palestinians. One of the dead was reportedly a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group blamed for numerous attacks on Israeli civilians.

Thursday’s violence erupted less than a day after international mediators presented the Israeli and Palestinian governments with the long-awaited road map, which calls for each side to take specific steps leading to a Palestinian state by 2005. It starts with an end to terrorism and an immediate cease-fire.

“In Phase I, the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence ... such action should be accompanied by supportive measures undertaken by Israel,” according to the peace plan.

The Palestinian leadership is to issue “an unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere,” it says. All official Palestinian institutions are to end incitement against Israel.

The Israeli leadership, in turn is to issue “an unequivocal statement affirming its commitments to the two-state vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel ... and calling for an immediate end to violence against Palestinians everywhere.” All official Israeli institutions are to end incitement against Palestinians.

The document calls on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and to end its settlements. Palestinians would build a new civil society and governmental institutions. The sides would hold talks on other issues, including refugees and the status of Jerusalem, claimed by both sides.

The process would be overseen by the authors of the road map, “leading to a final, permanent status resolution in 2005, including on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements; and to support progress toward a comprehensive Middle East settlement between Israel and Lebanon and Israel and Syria.”

But Thursday’s fighting deepened the mistrust on both sides and only confirmed entrenched positions. Differences over the peace plan already have surfaced, and no one is hazarding a guess as to when implementation of the initiative will begin.

In Madrid, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, “We need to see the end of terror -- and actions on the Israel side as well.” Powell is expected to visit Israel next week.

“We deeply regret the civilian casualties that occurred today in Gaza,” State Department spokeswoman Jo-Anne Prokopowicz said in Washington.

While recognizing Israel’s “right to self-defense,” Prokopowicz said: “We urge the Israeli government to take all appropriate precautions to prevent the death or injury of innocent civilians and damage to civilian and humanitarian infrastructure. This includes exercising restraint in undertaking operations in civilian areas.”

The White House had no immediate comment.

Heavy fighting broke out almost immediately after Israeli forces rumbled into Shijaya, a Hamas stronghold.

“It was really a horrible and difficult battle,” said Omar Abdullah Shalah, 38, who lay under a thin blanket in a nearby hospital after being wounded in the shootout. A bloodstain on the back of his shirt marked the spot where a bullet had exited. “We faced the helicopters and the Israeli tanks with our rifles, which was nothing.”

The crack of gunfire and sporadic shelling continued throughout the morning as Israeli troops, backed by helicopters, zeroed in on the home of the wanted men.

The troops called on the men inside to let women and children leave, but no one came out. A few hours later, the army stormed the building and brought out about 20 women and children, while the three men barricaded themselves on the roof, said Gadi Shamni, the commander of the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, on Israeli radio.

Gunfire from the house trailed off around noon, when the three men were believed to be dead, military sources said. Their bodies were removed from the house, which was then blown up.

Residents in Gaza said other homes had also been demolished, a tactic used by the Israeli army to discourage militants.

Hospital officials scrambled to treat the wounded. At one hospital, a 13-year-old boy arrived at a nearby emergency room with a bullet protruding from his cheek. A 15-year-old youth, Mahdy Hasanin, spoke softly while lying on his side, a compress over a bullet wound at his temple.

“We were watching the fighting between the militants and the tanks, and then one of the tanks turned. It was very fast,” Mahdy said. “It fired two shells and then there were shots.”

The 2-year-old boy who was killed was identified as Amir Ayad.

“Is this the new peace President Bush promised?” his father, Ahmed, asked Associated Press. “They wrote the answer using the blood of my son.”

Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, has pledged to crack down on militant groups and to implement the peace plan. But Hamas and other radical organizations have rejected it the plan and vowed to continue armed attacks.

Abbas convened his first Cabinet meeting Thursday. It was the first meeting of the top Palestinian leadership that did not take place at the compound of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. But Arafat’s influence on Palestinian politics is still strong.

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Times staff writer Chu reported from Jerusalem and special correspondent Morris from Gaza City.