RAMALLAH, March 4: Israeli troops swept back into Palestinian refugee camps on Monday and killed 19 Palestinians, including five children and a doctor.

The operations followed an Israeli cabinet decision to step up the military pressure after 22 Israelis were killed at the weekend.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made it clear there was more bloodshed to come.

“The Palestinians should be hit very hard because if they don’t feel they have been defeated, it will be impossible to return to the negotiating table,” Sharon said.

“They should suffer many losses. Whoever wants to negotiate with them, should hit them hard first, so that they understand that they will not get anything through terrorism,” the right-wing prime minister added.

In the deadliest operation, the wife and three children of a radical Hamas official were killed when Israeli tanks fired at two cars in the West Bank refugee camp of Al-Amari.

Officials of Hamas alleged a botched assassination bid against Hussein Abu Qweik and swore revenge.

The cars were fired on from an army base in the nearby Jewish settlement of Psagot, killing Abu Qweik’s 32-year-old wife Bushra, as well as his three children, Mohammad, 10, Aziza, 16, and Bara, 14, the sources said.

Two children in the other car, Arafat al-Masri, 16, and four-year-old Sheima Imad al-Bassala, also died.

Abu Qweik said his wife was taking his son and two daughters to school when an Israeli rocket hit the car.

“The Palestinian people and Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, will avenge my slain family,” he said while he headed a march of some 500 Hamas supporters from the hospital to the centre of Ramallah.—AFP