7 Dead in Shootout at Gaza Camp

Israeli forces thrust into a packed Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, sparking a fierce and protracted gun battle with militants early Friday that killed seven Palestinians, including an 8-year-old boy, and wounded dozens of others.

Witnesses described predawn pandemonium in the Rafah camp, the darkness punctuated by machine-gun fire, blasts from grenades, the roar of helicopters and the shouts of frightened residents as Palestinian gunmen battled Israeli soldiers.

The soldiers had come to the militant stronghold in search of tunnels they believed were used to run weapons into Gaza from across the border with Egypt. Israeli security sources said they were acting on intelligence that weapons runners were smuggling in increasingly sophisticated arms.

By the time the violence had subsided somewhat midmorning, six Palestinians were dead, including the 8-year-old, a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old, witnesses said. A seventh Palestinian, an 18-year-old, died in shooting that flared up in the afternoon, hospital officials said.

More than 40 residents were injured, many of them seriously. Several were hurt when Israeli forces fired a missile into a crowd of people that allegedly contained some of the gunmen, witnesses said.

The Israeli government alleges that Palestinian militias are trying to upgrade their arsenals with shoulder-mounted antiaircraft missile launchers, heavy artillery and rockets. Stinger missiles, for example, could knock out Israeli military and civilian aircraft, and Katyusha rockets are more accurate and have a longer range than the crude mortars used by Palestinian guerrillas here.

By Friday night, the Israeli army said it had uncovered two tunnels but no weapons. Military sources said the search would continue. Israeli soldiers who took up sniper positions in Palestinian homes told residents that they would be staying for a while, suggesting an extended operation.

Palestinian Authority officials in the West Bank condemned the raid as “a criminal act.” But they remained preoccupied with the internal political wrangling that has held up the formation of a new government under Prime Minister Ahmed Korei. More meetings were expected today to try to resolve a brewing leadership crisis.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticized the Israeli operation as a “disproportionate use of force in densely populated areas.”

But the Israeli government defended the raid, dubbed Operation Root Canal, which came after two suicide bombings within a week targeting Israelis. A military spokesman said Rafah was the main site of weapons smuggling in Gaza and that more than 30 tunnels had been discovered in the area since the beginning of the year.

Mourners in Gaza cried out for revenge as most of those who died in the raid were buried after noonday prayers Friday.

The radical group Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade vowed to strike a “very painful” blow against Israel after one of its operatives was killed in the firefight. A member of the militant organization Hamas and another from Islamic Jihad were also killed in the shootout.

The raid began late Thursday night when dozens of Israeli tanks, armored vehicles and bulldozers punched into Rafah from different directions, residents said. Their focus was a neighborhood on the border with Egypt where Israeli wrecking crews had demolished a cluster of homes the week before.

Jolted out of bed, panicked parents still in their pajamas grabbed their children and spilled into the warren of narrow alleys that crisscross the refugee camp. Residents reported seeing a thick black cloud overhead that might have been released by Israeli choppers trying to create cover below a nearly full moon.

“We’ve never been as afraid as we were last night,” teenager Anees Mansour said. “I [managed] to escape, but now I’m worried about my family who are still in the house.”

Palestinian militants and Israeli forces traded fire for hours in the heaviest fighting in Gaza since an Israeli incursion killed 12 people in May. An Israeli military spokesman said some of the Palestinian fire came from inside homes in the area. One Israeli soldier was slightly wounded.

Ambulances had trouble getting casualties to hospitals in Gaza, a seaside strip that in recent days has been sliced into four sections by Israeli troops who cut off travel among them. The closest hospital was overwhelmed with patients and not equipped to handle so many cases requiring surgery.

“We’re in a very dangerous situation,” hospital director Ali Musa said. “We lack medical supplies because Rafah was cut off the last five days. We’re trying to make do.”

By Friday evening, at least four homes had been reduced to rubble by Israeli bulldozers, and sporadic gunfire continued, residents said.

Israeli military sources said the two discovered tunnels were located inside Palestinian homes.

Abdel Razak Majaydeh, the highest-ranking Palestinian security official in Gaza, dismissed the Israeli charges as “excuses and weak lies” without “a grain of truth.” He called on the international community to intervene.

“We believe that Rafah is not the final target but the first step in the direction of comprehensive aggression that we believe will include all of the Gaza Strip,” said Ahmed Hillis, a top leader in Gaza of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction.

Arafat did not comment on the raid after attending Friday prayers in his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Reporters who saw him said he looked slightly better than he has in days past, able to kneel and stand unassisted. Rumors surrounding his ill health proliferated this week as he began appearing increasingly infirm in public, leaning heavily on aides or furniture.

Palestinian officials say Arafat is suffering from a severe stomach infection, although the rumor mill has variously diagnosed heart trouble, stomach cancer and even a reaction to Israeli poisoning.

Arafat was expected to convene meetings of the Fatah Central Committee and the Palestine Liberation Organization today to discuss the emergency Cabinet he tried to install under Korei.

A parliamentary vote to approve the crisis government was put off Thursday because of objections by a number of legislators to the Cabinet’s size, composition and emergency nature.

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