BEIT LAHIYA (Gaza Strip), July 6: Israeli forces on an offensive in Gaza killed 16 Palestinians in air strikes and clashes with militants on Thursday in the worst violence since the Jewish state quit the region a year ago.

Militants killed an Israeli soldier in northern Gaza, the army said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered tanks to push deeper into Gaza overnight after militants from the ruling Hamas fired rockets into a major Israeli city for the first time.

Palestinian Interior Minister Saeed Seyam of Hamas called on all the government’s security services to ‘confront this incursion and cowardly Zionist aggression’. Most forces are loyal to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.

Among the deadliest attacks on Thursday, an Israeli air strike near the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza killed six Palestinian civilians.

Another strike late in the night, in the same area, killed three Palestinians.

The Israeli army said it had carried out two air strikes against armed militants, killing four guerillas.

Beit Lahiya was also the scene of the heaviest ground fighting, where militants from various factions fired anti-tank rockets from narrow alleyways in running battles with Israeli troops who were backed up by tanks and helicopter gunships.

An Israeli battalion commander said his forces had killed seven fighters with sniper and tank fire. Two soldiers were wounded, the army said.

Beit Lahiya’s streets were largely deserted as frightened residents sheltered indoors.

“Israeli tanks are outside our house. Children are screaming and the house is shaking. We are caught in the crossfire,” one woman told a local radio station.

Aircraft also launched missile strikes near Khan Younis.

Senior Abbas aide, Saeb Erekat, said the international community needed to protect Palestinians at a ‘time of war’.—Reuters