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GAZA, Jan 26: Israel killed 12 Palestinians on Sunday in its deepest thrust into Gaza City in two years of fighting, a show of strength underlining Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s tough security policy two days before an election.
Dozens of armoured vehicles backed by missile-firing helicopters rumbled from three directions into the Zaitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, a stronghold of the Islamic group Hamas that has carried out dozens of suicide attacks.
During the raid, Palestinian gunmen fought back with assault rifles, explosives and anti-tank missiles, the army said.
Palestinian sources said the dead included seven gunmen and a policeman and all the dead were men aged 18 and over.
About 40,000 Palestinians marched at a mass funeral for the 12. Some mourners fired in the air. Others vowed revenge.
“We will shed Jewish blood in Jaffa and Tel Aviv,” Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi, a top Hamas official, told reporters.
During the night-time incursion, Israeli forces pulled to within 100 metres of the main Palestine Square.
Palestinian security officials said troops stormed homes and metal workshops and destroyed one of the biggest factories in Gaza, a plant that made garbage containers, before withdrawing.
It was the strongest and deepest operation in Palestinian-ruled Gaza City since an uprising for an independent state began in September 2000.
A 74-year-old former general, Sharon is expected to lead his rightist Likud party to victory in Tuesday’s general election.
He has made tough military action against Palestinian militants the bedrock of his campaign.
Israel struck just as the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz quoted senior army officials as saying the peak of Israeli-Palestinian violence had passed and as Palestinian factions met in Cairo to consider Egypt’s proposal for a one-year unilateral ceasefire.
“Prime Minister Sharon is determined to end his election campaign with more Palestinian blood and with more destruction and with more aggression and escalation,” Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said.
In the West Bank, home to another more than two million Palestinians, an Israeli security source said the army would clamp a blanket ban on Palestinian travel on Sunday until after the Israeli election.
PROLONGED OPERATION: In a television interview broad cast hours before the Gaza raid, Sharon promised never to compromise on Israeli security.
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said troops destroyed 100 machines used to produce mortar bombs and Hamas-made Qassam rockets after Palestinians fired missiles on the southern Israeli town of Sderot a few days earlier.
Mofaz said Israel was considering a prolonged operation in the Gaza Strip, similar to its reoccupation of most West Bank cities, but that a decision had yet to be taken.
Three of the 12 were killed by missile fire, the rest from gunfire as clashes erupted between troops and gunmen.
It was the highest Palestinian death toll in an Israeli operation since 16 people were killed in a raid in the Gaza town of Khan Younis in October.
Israeli snipers commandeered rooftops as tracer bullets streaked through the night sky and calls rang out from mosques for armed Palestinians to confront the Israelis. An Israeli missile slammed into a market, setting it ablaze.
“We were asleep, all of a sudden the ground was shaking...I saw tanks and froze in my place,” said Ahmed Nemer of Zaitoun. “We squeezed in one room and awaited God’s mercy. We could hear the soldiers shouting at neighbours to open doors and come out.”
Israeli troops launched a new raid into the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun early on Sunday, witnesses said. A military source said soldiers were conducting searches after Palestinians fired a Qassam rocket from the area.
On Saturday, Israeli forces blew up four bridges in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, cutting it off from Gaza City after five rockets fired from the area struck Sderot near Sharon’s ranch but caused no serious injuries.
For the Palestinian groups meeting in Cairo, agreement to a one-year unilateral ceasefire seemed a long shot from the start.—Reuters
