Two refugee camps in central Gaza were turned into war-zones yesterday, with at least fourteen Palestinians killed by Israeli troops during seven hours of fighting, writes David Horovitz.
The violence came a day after a sophisticated series of Palestinian suicide bombings were thwarted at the Gaza-Israel border, with the deaths of four bombers and two Palestinian policemen who may have helped stop them.
The weekend's heavy death toll underlined that bloodshed is escalating ahead of Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon's declared intention of withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in the coming months, with each side seeking to have the pull-out perceived as a victory.
Ten of the Palestinians killed in yesterday's Israeli raids on the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps were armed gunmen, nine of them from Hamas, shot during clashes with the Israeli troops.
Two of the dead were boys - including a nine-year-old hit in the doorway of his home after escaping his mother's desperate effort to prevent him going outside to watch the fighting. Dozens more Palestinians were injured in the clashes which began before dawn, during which lines of Israeli armoured vehicles moved into the camps, with snipers keeping watch from rooftops and helicopters clattering overhead.
"We wanted to search areas where terror cells were hiding out," said the Israeli general commanding forces in Gaza, Gadi Shamni. "Many armed men confronted us. We are sorry about the deaths of innocents."
Loudhailers in local mosques urged Gazans into the streets, and Palestinian gunmen fired back at the soldiers, sometimes from within large crowds. Israeli military vehicles faced off against vast numbers of locals. Young Palestinians chased after the Israelis, throwing stones.
The Palestinian Authority denounced the raids as "state terror against our people" and warned that Israel would pay a heavy price.
A Hamas spokesman asserted that Mr Sharon had ordered in the troops to "try and cover up for the failure" in Gaza that has prompted his talk of unilateral withdrawal.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians attended frenzied funerals for many of the dead yesterday afternoon, and gunmen from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades all threatened revenge, including further suicide bombings.
"Any restaurant or bus or bus stop may be a target of our heroic explosions," declared one masked gunman.
Israeli military officials said the raids were designed to destroy the "terrorist infrastructure" - including explosives factories. "Terrorism is pouring out of this refugee camp," a government spokesman said of the Bureij camp, referring also to attacks on Israeli settlements, "and we have to stop it."
A Palestinian gunman, interviewed for Arabic TV stations, said that "as long as the occupation continues, so will our opposition."