ISRAEL/GAZA: At least seven Palestinians were killed yesterday when Israeli troops, backed by helicopters, fought gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, which the army has invaded in an effort to prevent militants from firing rockets into Israel.
Later in the day, five soldiers were injured, including an officer who was moderately wounded, when militants detonated a roadside bomb near a jeep in southern Gaza. The radical Islamic Jihad group claimed the attack, saying it was retaliation for what it called the "ugly Zionist massacre" in Beit Hanoun.
Palestinian gunmen fought troops and machine-gun-firing helicopters in heavy fighting in Beit Hanoun. Of the seven Palestinians killed in the fighting, two were civilians and the rest were armed men, most of them members of Hamas and Fatah. One soldier was seriously wounded in the raid in Beit Hanoun, where Palestinian officials said residents had been without water and electricity for three days.
Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat called on the international community to halt the operation in Gaza: "I say to the world, there has been enough silence," he told reporters at his compound in Ramallah.
An army officer said the military was taking over areas from where Palestinian militants had fired rockets into Israel and that the operation would go on "as long as necessary". The army moved into Beit Hanoun last week after militants fired rockets into the southern Israeli town of Sderot, not far from the border with Gaza, killing two people - the first casualties in such a rocket attack since the start of the intifada uprising in September 2000.
The escalating violence in Gaza comes against the backdrop of Mr Sharon's plan to evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements in the Strip, as well as four in the West Bank. Until he announced his unilateral "disengagement" plan several months ago, the Israeli leader had consistently vowed not to make any concessions "under fire". But, despite the rocket attacks, he has set the end of 2005 as the deadline for getting out of Gaza.
In what is being interpreted as part of his effort to move forward with his Gaza withdrawal plan, Mr Sharon yesterday invited Labor Party leader Mr Shimon Peres for coalition talks on Sunday. The prime minister lost his parliamentary majority when right-wing parties left his coalition over the government's approval of the Gaza plan.
Mr Sharon faces opposition within his own centre-right Likud party to bringing Labor into government, but without the centre-left party, which supports leaving Gaza, it will be very difficult for him to implement his disengagement plan.
The International Court of Justice, which sits in The Hague, is set to render its ruling today on the legality of the massive security barrier Israel is building in the West Bank. Deliberations began earlier this year, after the Security Council in December asked the court for an advisory opinion on the legality of the barrier, parts of which jut deep into the West Bank.
Construction on the barrier, which will ultimately stretch several hundred kilometres, began in 2002 and is at an advanced stage. Israel says the barrier is a vital bulwark against suicide bombers and officials point to it as one of the reasons for the drop in bombings in recent months.
Palestinians argue that the barrier is part of an effort to gobble up land on which they hope to build an independent state.