Day of Carnage Claims 15 in Gaza

The number of Palestinians killed Wednesday during an hours-long gun battle with Israeli soldiers in Gaza City rose to 12, and three died later in an army raid in another part of the Gaza Strip that has seen frequent clashes.

The fierce skirmishing in Gaza City, which took place in the Shajaiyeh neighborhood on the edge of town, marked the deadliest clash in months as Israeli troops met resistance from Palestinian fighters in a densely populated community.

Most of those slain belonged to Palestinian militant groups, according to Israeli and Palestinian sources, although civilians were among the dozens of people wounded. No Israeli casualties were reported.

One of those reported killed was Hani abu Skhila, a Hamas activist who was suspected of playing a role in the October bombing of a convoy carrying U.S. diplomats, Israeli sources said. Three American security guards were killed in that attack. U.S. officials have complained that the Palestinians were generating few leads in the case, although four men have been ordered to stand trial in connection with the bombing.

Also killed Wednesday was Mohammed Ahmed Hilliss, whose father leads the Gaza Strip branch of Fatah, a faction affiliated with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Hamas issued a broad call for retribution.

Israeli military officials said the Gaza City incursion, which began in the predawn darkness, was intended as a strike against Palestinians who have launched mortar and rocket attacks on the nearby Jewish settlement of Netzarim. The settlement has been the target of dozens of attacks in recent months.

“The objective of these operations is to target the cells that plant bombs and launch rockets and mortars and who have been increasing their activities,” Col. Yoel Strick, the army commander in the Gaza Strip, told reporters.

“I can say that the operation was professional, achieved its objectives. Our goals were reached,” he said.

The fighting raged into the morning, when armed Palestinians sought to head off Israeli tanks, firing rifles and antitank weapons at the troops, who shot back, Israeli officials said.

The battle took place in a community of closely packed houses, with children watching the two sides trade gunfire. Youths set fire to stacks of tires. At least three of those injured were boys who were looking on, according to news reports.

Some Gaza residents huddled behind closed doors. The sounds of gunfire and explosions echoed throughout the city before the Israelis pulled out in midafternoon.

The troops withdrew after detonating explosives in a house that officials said held weapons and bomb-making equipment.

The latest fighting underscored the cost of Israel’s defense of its Gaza Strip settlements, as well as the risk that withdrawal could embolden armed factions that have long sought Israel’s ouster from Gaza and the West Bank, which it captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has cited the burden of defending isolated settlements -- whose founding he once championed -- in suggesting that he might order the removal of as many as 17 settlements in the Gaza Strip and several in the West Bank. The idea -- the details and timing of which have yet to be laid out -- has rankled some of Sharon’s Likud Party colleagues.

Some Israelis have said that abandoning the settlements would reward terrorism and might strengthen groups such as Hamas by allowing them to portray the evacuations as a military triumph over Israel.

In response to Wednesday’s clashes, Hamas urged retaliation through “big martyrdom operations” -- the term used for suicide strikes -- throughout Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

A senior Hamas leader, Said Siam, vowed that the reaction would be “very tough.” A spokesman for Islamic Jihad urged Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Korei not to meet with Sharon. Aides to the two leaders have held talks to arrange a summit.

Israeli troops Wednesday also swept into the town of Rafah, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, in search of tunnels that are used to smuggle weapons from Egypt.

Three Palestinians were reported killed and at least 13 were wounded during the incursion -- one of many Israel has launched in Rafah to disrupt what Israeli officials say is a major supply line for weapons and explosives.

A military spokesman said no tunnels were found, although troops demolished a building that was believed to contain a passageway and was feared booby-trapped.

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Special correspondent Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City contributed to this report.