Israeli raid into refugee camp leaves eight dead

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli forces looking for tunnels used for weapons smuggling clashed Tuesday with Palestinians at a refugee camp, killing eight and wounding more than 40 -- the worst violence in the Gaza Strip in more than two months.

The bloodshed came despite new efforts to restart stalled peace talks and arrange a long-anticipated summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed Qureia.

In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers searching for militants shot and killed a bystander in a village near the city of Nablus, Palestinians said. The military said soldiers opened fire when they spotted a man preparing to throw a firebomb at them.

The Palestinian Authority denounced the raid on the Gaza-Egypt border, which witnesses said began early Tuesday when about 40 Israeli tanks and armored vehicles entered the Rafah refugee camp.

Five militants and three civilians were killed, including a Palestinian police officer who was heading to his job at the Rafah border crossing when he was shot in the head, according to his family.

Nine children were among the 42 wounded, hospital officials said.

A military source said the troops faced an unusual amount of resistance in the camp. In two separate instances, pairs of militants tried to plant explosives and the soldiers shot them, the source said. Another militant was shot after throwing a grenade at the soldiers, the source said.

On three other occasions, troops came under fire and shot their assailants, the source said. No Israelis were wounded, the military said.

Masked men with camouflage uniforms and the headbands of the militant Hamas group ran through the town's alleys with assault rifles. As an Israeli bulldozer knocked down a building, two gunmen in a nearby alley shot at the huge, armored machine. At the hospital, a man in a camouflage uniform was brought in on a stretcher, bleeding from his head.

Residents said families fled the area in their pajamas, and Israeli snipers were firing from rooftop positions. Helicopters flew overhead and explosions were heard throughout the morning. At least seven houses were destroyed, residents said.

The refugee camp is split in two by the Egyptian border, and Israel charges that Palestinians often smuggle weapons into Gaza using makeshift tunnels, some of them deep and wide. Egypt has denied that the tunnels originate on its side of the border.

The Israeli military said soldiers discovered a 42-foot-deep tunnel used for smuggling weapons under the border. The entrance was inside a house in the refugee camp, the military said.

Israeli soldiers were still operating in the camp after nightfall Tuesday, the military said.

At the funeral for five of those killed, the sounds of mourning mixed with the roar of gunfire and tanks moving as the incursion continued.

The death toll in the raid was the highest since 14 Palestinians were killed in an Oct. 20 Israeli bombing at the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Late-night Israeli military operations in the camp are frequent. Israelis enter with tanks and bulldozers, knocking down houses and other structures they say cover the tunnels or provide shelter for gunmen. Palestinians say hundreds have been made homeless in the raids.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat denounced the raid, which came as he and a senior Israeli official have been trying to coordinate the first summit meeting between Sharon and Qureia.

"At a time when we are trying to get the peace process back on track, at a time when we are trying to prepare a meeting between the two prime ministers, eight Palestinians are killed in Rafah," Erekat complained, renewing a request for international monitors to help stop the violence.

Qureia took office in October, but he and Sharon have not met yet. Qureia has said he wants to ensure positive results from the summit -- meaning an easing of crippling Israeli restrictions in the West Bank and other measures. Sharon rejects preconditions. Israel insists that the roadblocks, barriers, curfews and closures are necessary for security.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces arrested more than 20 Hamas activists in the area of Ramallah, Palestinians said Tuesday.

The Israeli government said in a statement that the activists were involved in attacks against Israelis and were also planning to kidnap soldiers, decapitate them and try to trade their bodies for imprisoned Palestinians.

Hamas militants in a truck planned to stage a traffic accident and kill Israeli soldiers who came to investigate, the statement said. They would take three soldiers' bodies and the heads from three others. They would then offer to trade them for Palestinians in Israeli prisons, it said.

Several attempts to carry out the attack failed, and the arrests stopped the plot, the statement said.

The three Hamas cells received funding from Hamas headquarters in Damascus, Syria, according to the statement. Israel has singled out Syria as a center of radical Palestinian groups. The cells had tens of thousands of dollars at their disposal, the statement said.

Since the beginning of the month, the Israeli military and secret services have "mostly shut down" the Hamas headquarters in Ramallah, the statement said.