Israel Raids Gaza; 3 Reportedly Killed

Israeli tanks punched into the Gaza Strip late Tuesday, seizing three Palestinian towns and a refugee camp, the army and Palestinian sources said. Three Palestinian policemen were killed when their post was shelled, Palestinian sources said.

The Israeli operation began hours after Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel might recapture some Palestinian territory to prevent rocket attacks on Israeli cities. The militant Islamic movement Hamas fired a Kassam-2 rocket into the Negev desert Sunday. The rocket caused no damage, but Israeli officials said the use of the weapon, which can reach cities deep inside Israel, marked an escalation of the conflict that has raged since September 2000.

Israeli security sources said Palestinians fired two more Kassam-2 rockets Tuesday at Jewish settlements in the West Bank but did not hit them. No one was injured.

In a statement issued this morning, the army said tanks, infantry troops and special forces were sent into the northern and central Gaza Strip in response to the rocket attacks. It said it “seized territory . . . where rockets and mortars are fired.” Troops and tanks pulled out of two of the towns before dawn, the army said, but remained in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza, a town Israeli officials described as “a center of terrorism from the Hamas movement.”

Palestinian security officials said the three police officers died in Deir al Balah, a farming community in central Gaza that lies near a Jewish settlement frequently targeted by Palestinian gunmen and hit by Palestinian mortar shells. In a statement, the security service said the police officers were “assassinated in cold blood.” An army spokesman said he was checking the report that the officers had been killed.

Palestinians said the Israelis destroyed three Palestinian posts on the outskirts of Deir al Balah. The army said its troops exchanged gunfire with Palestinians in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, Deir al Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp.

In Jabaliya, militants called on refugees to resist the incursion, broadcasting messages from mosque loudspeakers.

Palestinians said the Israelis arrested dozens of suspected militants and were making house-to-house searches. Tanks reportedly surrounded the partially destroyed house of Salah Shehada in Beit Hanoun. Shehada is a high-ranking Hamas militant who is on Israel’s list of wanted Palestinians.

Maj. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaydeh, chief of Palestinian police in Gaza, issued a statement demanding an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from all Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip.

“What the Israeli occupation forces are doing is an aggression on our unarmed Palestinian people,” said Majaydeh. “This will not achieve security for the Israelis but will increase the deterioration and the danger in the situation.”

In its statement, the army said arrests had been made during its operation but declined to say how many. The army did not say how long its forces would remain in Beit Hanoun.

Ben-Eliezer, Israel’s defense minister, told reporters Tuesday that “the Kassam-2 is something that crosses all our red lines” because of its range of about five miles.

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Times researcher Fayed abu Shamallah in Gaza City contributed to this report.