Israeli Tank Shells Kill 7 Palestinians in Northern Gaza

Israeli troops in the northern Gaza Strip, alerted to the presence of Palestinian militants firing mortar rounds, lobbed two tank shells into a rain-soaked field early Tuesday. When the smoke cleared, the remains of seven Palestinians lay scattered among the strawberry and potato plants.

The Israeli military said the tank shells hit the men who had fired mortar rounds at a nearby Jewish settlement. But relatives of the dead, six of whom reportedly were from the same extended family, said they were farm boys ages 12 to 17 who had been working in the fields.

Witnesses said the boys were bystanders in an attack by a cell of masked Palestinian militants who slipped into the field near the agricultural village of Beit Lahiya, fired their mortar shells and left before the Israeli tank crew responded.

Coming five days before Palestinian Authority presidential election, the deaths -- the worst single-day toll in Gaza in more than three months -- sparked an outcry from Palestinians.

Leading candidate Mahmoud Abbas condemned Israel, employing the strongest language he has used publicly since assuming the interim leadership of the Palestinian Authority after Yasser Arafat’s death Nov. 11.

“We are praying for the souls of the martyrs who were killed today by the shells of the Zionist enemy,” Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, told a raucous crowd at a campaign rally in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, using terms that were normally the province of militant groups such as Hamas.

Abbas’ verbal onslaught drew a sharp response from Ehud Olmert, Israel’s vice prime minister and a close confidant of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

“There’s no doubt that Abu Mazen’s statement are intolerable, unacceptable and can be no basis for future cooperation,” Olmert told Israel Radio.

Israel thus far has kept silent about the election, making of a point of saying little about rhetoric employed by the Palestinian leader on the campaign trail. But Olmert made it clear that if Abbas won Sunday’s vote as expected, such remarks could block the start of a dialogue with Israel.

“After Jan. 9 we’ll relate to these statements in a different way, and judge them in a different way, than we are doing today,” Olmert said.

Sharon’s government has been under heavy pressure to stop militants from firing homemade rockets and mortar rounds at Jewish settlements in Gaza and at Israeli towns that lie close to the coastal strip.

Israeli officials said more than 80 mortar shells had been fired at Gaza settlements in the last two weeks.

The Israeli army has been hunting for the Palestinian militants responsible for those attacks. The military first targeted the Khan Yunis refugee camp and then shifted its attention this week to a swath of northern Gaza that includes Beit Lahiya.

Though Israel brings overwhelming firepower to bear in these raids, its tanks and combat helicopters have been unable to halt the rocket and mortar attacks, usually carried out by small, fast-moving militant cells.

Israel blames the militants for endangering Palestinian civilians by using crowded areas as staging grounds for the attacks.

“Palestinian terrorists continue to not only target Israeli civilians, but have no qualms about hiding behind their own civilians,” said David Baker, a government spokesman.

Abbas also has criticized the rocket and mortar attacks, saying they only invite Israeli retaliation. He tried to visit those wounded in Tuesday’s attack but was driven back by heavy explosions as his motorcade approached the hospital. Israeli and Palestinian spokesmen each blamed the other side for those blasts.

Tuesday’s confrontation began when militants fired mortar rounds at the Nisanit settlement. Three Israelis were reportedly wounded, but the injuries were not serious.

Capt. Yael Hartmann, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said the crew of an Israeli tank about a mile and a half from the field in Beit Lahiya spotted militants armed with two launchers.

“They targeted the cell, and they hit their target,” she said. “They did not hit a group of innocent civilians; they hit the cell that was launching mortars.”

A group affiliated with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for firing on Nisanit. But neither it nor any of the other militant groups claimed any of the dead as members.

Doctors at Kamal Adwan Hospital said six other Palestinians were hurt, four critically.

Six of the dead were identified by relatives as members of the Ghaben family, including three brothers.

Witnesses said the cousins and brothers came to see what was happening when they heard the mortar fire. They were huddled together and talking when the tank shells hit, said a neighbor, Arafah Massri.

Zahra Ghaben, mother of Jabber Ghaben, 13, one of the seven killed, said youngsters flocked to the sights and sounds of fighting, however much their parents tried to caution them to stay away.

“My nephew came and told me, ‘Your son is killed, and his body is in pieces,’ ” she said. “He used to go and watch this every day, but today he will not come back.”

Special correspondent Rushdie abu Alouf in Beit Lahiya contributed to this report.