8 Palestinians Die in Firefight as Israel Raids Gaza

JERUSALEM â€”  Israeli troops and tanks pushed into a crowded Gaza City neighborhood early today, setting off a fierce firefight that left at least eight Palestinians dead and about a dozen wounded, several of them seriously, residents said.

A spokesman for the Israeli army said the raid in the Shajaiyeh neighborhood was a response to missiles being fired at Israeli tanks while troops were searching for Palestinian militants. The area, on the eastern edge of Gaza City, is a stronghold of the extremist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

When the tanks rumbled into the dilapidated neighborhood before dawn, local mosques quickly called on residents by loudspeaker to defend the area. The sandy streets filled with gunmen and demonstrators shouting anti-Israel slogans. Bursts of automatic-weapons fire and powerful explosions echoed across the city.

Israel has been criticized by international human rights groups for operations of this type, in which it uses battlefield weapons in densely populated urban areas.

No Israeli casualties were immediately reported.

Israeli tanks and armored bulldozers also moved overnight into the Rafah refugee camp on the Israel-Egypt border, according to Palestinian officials.

They said at least eight Palestinians were hurt in exchanges of fire.

Israel has been conducting frequent operations in Rafah to search for cross-border tunnels used by Palestinian militants to smuggle arms.

The fighting broke out hours after several hundred Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets of Gaza City, protesting the indictment of four Palestinian men on charges of setting off a roadside bomb that targeted a U.S. diplomatic convoy.

Three American security guards were killed in the October attack.

U.S. officials have repeatedly accused Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority of failing to act aggressively to solve the case and complained that they were given no notice before Palestinian officials indicted the four men Saturday.

American officials are also dismayed that the charge against the men is manslaughter rather than murder.