Israeli Army Kills 9 in Gaza

JERUSALEM â€”  Israeli troops and tanks, backed by helicopter gunships, raided a crowded refugee camp in the Gaza Strip before dawn today in a hunt for wanted militants, setting off a fierce firefight that killed nine Palestinians and injured about six others, according to hospital officials and witnesses.

The Israeli army said in a statement that it was acting “against terrorist targets� in its incursion into the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Troops demolished the home of a fugitive from the same militant group as a Palestinian who was killed by Israeli missiles a day earlier, but the man was not captured.

In recent months, Israeli troops have made frequent overnight incursions into towns and refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza, either to arrest or kill wanted militants or to demolish the family homes of Palestinians who carried out or were suspected of planning suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis.

Witnesses said most of the casualties in today’s fighting occurred when a tank shell was fired in the direction of a home. The army said its troops came under “massive� fire from Palestinian gunmen, and soldiers responded with tank shells, helicopter-fired missiles and separate close-range gun battles.

The fighting came as Palestinians were observing the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the fasting and prayer month of Ramadan.

Hospital officials in the Palestinian town of Deir al Balah, close to the camp, said the casualties were mainly from gunshot wounds and shrapnel, but did not yet know how many of the dead and injured were gunmen and how many were civilians.

The army said the target of the raid was Ayman Shasniyeh, a local leader of the Popular Resistance Committee, whose members are mainly drawn from the ranks of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction. Shasniyeh’s home was destroyed and one of his brothers was arrested, along with a second wanted man, but troops did not find Shasniyeh.

The army described the camp as a stronghold of several militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Israeli Brig. Gen. Israel Viv told Associated Press that at least four of the dead were Hamas activists.

Hours before the Israeli incursion, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told reporters that Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network had operatives who were active in the Gaza Strip -- an assertion Palestinian security officials categorically denied.

Sharon did not provide any details, and it was not known whether today’s operation was in any way related to the Israeli claim.

Israeli troops withdrew after the firefight, in line with what has become the common practice of incursions into militant strongholds lasting only a matter of hours.

On Thursday in Gaza City, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a building in a Palestinian government compound, killing a Palestinian militant who Israel blamed for engineering a string of deadly roadside bombings of Merkava tanks during the past 10 months. Shasniyeh was also wanted in connection with attacks against Merkavas, the army said.

During the past 26 months of fighting, dozens of militants have been slain in what Israel calls targeted killings. Palestinians and human rights groups consider them extrajudicial executions.