TEL AVIV, March 7: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shoved aside US criticism of his policies on Thursday, with his forces continuing to pound Palestinian targets, killing 12 people.

Three Palestinians, including a paramedic, were killed in clashes with the Israeli army in Tulkarem refugee camp, in the West Bank.

Earlier in the day, six Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces reoccupied the city of Tulkarem and two nearby refugee camps, while another died elsewhere in the West Bank and two in the Gaza Strip.

And a suicide bomber killed himself and wounded nine people in an attack on a commercial complex just outside Ariel, in the West Bank, one of the biggest settlements in the Palestinian territories.

One of those wounded was in critical condition following the bombing, claimed by the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Barely an hour later, Israeli gunships fired at least two rockets on security buildings in the Gaza Strip refugee camp of Jabalya, including an office used by the PFLP.

Israeli tanks, backed up by helicopter gunships, rolled into Tulkarem on Wednesday night.

Around 50 tanks and armoured vehicles reoccupied it as well as the Tulkarem and Nur El-Shams Palestinian refugee camps, in an operation that also injured 35 people, two of them critically.

An Israeli bulldozer entered a school run by the UN Palestinian refugee agency on the edge of Tulkarem, destroyed walls and tore up the playground.

Colonel Yair Golan told Israeli public radio the operation could last “as long as two days” and that it was aimed at “catching as many wanted militants as possible, as well as arms”.

Another 10 civilians were wounded when an Israeli F-16 warplane attacked an empty Palestinian police headquarters in the centre of Gaza City, hospital sources said.

Two Israeli helicopters also fired rockets on a position of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s elite Force 17 bodyguards in a village south of the West Bank town of Al Khalil, hours after hitting their headquarters in Bethlehem.

The attacks followed a day of bloodshed on Wednesday when 12 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed.

Late on Wednesday Israeli helicopter gunships rocketed a building next door to the Ramallah offices of Arafat as he was meeting EU Middle East envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos, and speaking on the phone with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.—AFP