03 October 2004	Sunday	17 Shaban 1425

RAMALLAH, Oct 2: The Palestinian cabinet declared a state of emergency in the occupied territories with leader Yasser Arafat appealing for international help against a massive Israeli incursion that killed a further 11 Palestinians on Saturday.

Seven were killed in the early hours of the morning while another died of his wounds, with two subsequent Israeli air strikes killing one and then two Palestinians.

Yasser Arafat called on the world to end the "criminal and racist" Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip, which the Jewish state says is to root out militants firing improvised rockets into Israeli territory. But militants of the Hamas said they would continue to fire the rockets and would target the port city of Ashkelon.

"The Israeli military operation has failed," said a leader of Hamas's military wing, the Ezzedin al Qassam Brigades, in a press conference at the Jabaliya refugee camp, a focal point in the fighting, adding: "We will continue to fire Qassam rockets."

However, another Hamas leader later said that his group was prepared to stop firing rockets if Israeli forces ended their campaign in the northern Gaza Strip.

"Our sons will stop the firing of Qassam rockets as a means of defence if the Israeli occupier ceases its aggressive incursion and its occupation in the north of the Gaza Strip," said Ismail Haniyeh.

Mr Arafat, speaking to journalists outside his headquarters after the emergency cabinet session, said: "I call on the entire world to act immediately and rapidly to stop the criminal and racist" attack launched by the Israeli army.

At the same time, he denied that any of the rockets fired at Israel had caused any casualties, contradicting Israeli reports that two children had been killed in the southern town of Sderot on Wednesday.

"These rockets the Israelis are talking about have not killed anyone ... and only make noise," he said.

A Palestinian cabinet statement called for international intervention, humanitarian help for the people of Gaza and denounced what it called "world silence in the face of the magnitude of crimes committed".

Israeli troops have killed 56 Palestinians since Tuesday night when more than 100 tanks, backed by aircraft, moved into the northern Gaza Strip in the operation called "Days of Penitence".

Shops closed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Saturday in a widely followed strike to protest at the deaths of the Palestinians.

Egypt and France joined mounting calls for a halt to the violence while Spain, Switzerland, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Canada also expressed concern.

The Arab League announced that it would hold an emergency session on Sunday to discuss the Israeli incursion.

Palestinian security sources said Israeli gunfire killed a Palestinian early on Saturday near his home in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Two Palestinians died and four were wounded in an Israeli air raid on the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip.

The dead were members of the Islamic Jihad group, officials said.

In a separate operation, Israeli troops shot dead four members of a Palestinian commando after they had managed to infiltrate Israel from the Gaza Strip, the military said.

Later, hospital sources in Gaza City said a Palestinian hit during an Israeli air raid on the Jabaliya camp on Friday died of his wounds, with one Palestinian killed and four seriously wounded during another Israeli attack on Jabaliya on Saturday.

Two Hamas militants were killed when a rocket fired by an Israeli helicopter slammed into their vehicle in the Gaza Strip, medics said, leaving seven others wounded.

PROTEST: Israel said it would lodge a protest with the United Nations after releasing footage of what it says are Palestinian militants using a UN ambulance to transport rockets.-AFP