Israeli attack on Gaza Strip refugee camp leaves 10 dead

BUREIJ CAMP, Gaza Strip -- Ten Palestinians, including two U.N. employees, were killed in chaotic battles that erupted when Israeli troops, tanks and helicopter gunships poured into a Gaza Strip refugee camp Friday, searching for a fugitive militant allegedly involved in a fatal bombing.

U.N., European and Arab officials criticized the Israeli action in the crowded Bureij camp, which came as Muslims were celebrating Eid el-Fitr, the four-day festival marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Palestinian officials called on the U.N. Security Council to hold a special session on the violence and consider sending international observers to the region.

"Every day there is a new massacre," Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told reporters outside of his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "Every day there is destruction. Every day there is more damage. Every day there are more arrests and every day there are more assassinations."

Hamas activists targeted

An Israeli army spokeswoman, Capt. Sharon Feingold, called the action a "pinpoint operation aimed at one of the most senior terrorists" in what she called a stronghold of Islamic militants.

Six Hamas activists were among those killed, according to a statement received by the Hezbollah TV station al-Manar in Lebanon.

Brig. Gen. Israel Ziv said the operation targeted Aiman Shasniyeh, a local leader of the Popular Resistance Committee. The military believes Shasniyeh was behind a bomb attack on a heavily armored tank that killed three soldiers in March. Troops failed to find Shasniyeh but blew up his house. Soldiers arrested one of his brothers, along with another man, Ziv said.

It was the second time this week that Israel has gone after Palestinians suspected in attacks on Israeli tanks. On Wednesday, another alleged member of the Popular Resistance Committee -- Mustafa Sabah -- was killed when Israeli helicopters destroyed a Palestinian government guardhouse in Gaza City.

Later Friday, Israeli troops entered a West Bank village and shot to death a suspected Islamic Jihad fugitive, Abdel Hadi Omar, 21. Five other people were wounded, two by bullets, as soldiers chased Omar through the streets of al-Seilah al-Hardheyah, near Jenin, witnesses and hospital workers said.

Military officials said Omar was shot fleeing from soldiers who were trying to arrest him. He was carrying an M-16 and ammunition, they said.

Also Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said his government was engaged "secretly" in talks with people "from the Palestinian leadership" -- but not Arafat. He did not elaborate in the interview with Israeli television. Sharon has demanded Arafat's replacement as Palestinian leader as a condition for any future peace talks.

Thousands turned out for the funerals of those killed in Bureij. The bodies, wrapped in white cloth or blankets, were carried through crowded streets in open coffins painted with the Palestinian flag. Militants wearing fatigues and ski masks fired automatic weapons into the air.

Ahmed Rabah, a doctor at the nearby Al-Aqsa hospital, said nine people were killed and 11 were wounded. An official at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said a tenth person, a woman, died of injuries.

The U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said two of its staff members were among the dead: Osama Hassan Tahrawi, a 31-year-old school attendant, who was killed along with two of his brothers by a missile; and the woman who died in the hospital from shrapnel injuries, Ahlam Riziq Kandil, a 31-year-old elementary school teacher.

Their deaths followed the shooting of U.N. aid worker Iain Hook two weeks ago by Israeli soldiers -- the first senior U.N. official to be killed during the current conflict. Israeli soldiers said they mistook Hook's cell phone for a weapon.

"This loss of civilian lives, of people working for a humanitarian U.N. agency, is completely unacceptable, said Peter Hansen, UNRWA's commissioner-general, in Geneva. "I must condemn what appears to be the indiscriminate use of heavy firepower in a densely populated civilian area."

A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York renewed calls for Israel to "refrain from the excessive and disproportionate use of deadly force in civilian areas."

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, representing the European Union, warned Israel that using "excessive might" could backfire.

"It's deeply tragic that completely innocent people again have been killed," Moeller told reporters in Copenhagen.

Feingold, the army spokeswoman, accused Palestinian militants of hiding behind civilians in the camps.

Troops approaching Shasniyeh's house came under withering gunfire from nearby homes and on the street in what turned into a close-quarters gunbattle in the camp's narrow alleys, Feingold said. One soldier was lightly wounded, she said.