Six Palestinians killed in Israeli incursion into Gaza

BEIT HANUN: Six Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in Gaza on Wednesday when Israeli infantry units backed by tanks seized control of a town in a major operation in the battered territory.   

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas swiftly condemned what he called an Israeli "massacre", urging the international community to put an immediate stop to the hostilities.   

Medics said at least six Palestinians, including three members of the armed wing of the governing Hamas party, were killed and 40 wounded in the town that witnesses said was surrounded by some 60 Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles.

Israeli forces were also operating in the nearby refugee camp of Jabaliya and the northern town of Beit Lahiya.   

Soldiers hunkered down on rooftops exchanged gunfire with militants in Beit Hanun as helicopters and drones flew overhead. Israeli bulldozers razed three houses in the town and another dozen homes were hit by tank shells.   

The armed wings of Hamas and the radical Islamic Jihad militant group announced that their forces had killed an Israeli soldier during the operation.   

Pan-Arab satellite television Al-Jazeera also reported that an Israeli soldier had been killed in Beit Hanun. The Israeli army refused to comment.   

Israel's security cabinet, however, meeting to review military operations underway in the Gaza Strip for the last four months, ruled out ordering any immediate larger-scale ground operation in the territory.   

"The meeting ended without a decision being taken on expanding operations underway, in keeping with the recommendations of Defense Minister Amir Peretz," the official said. 

Two days ago, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had warned Israel could expand its offensive in Gaza. On Wednesday, his office said only that "current security operations" would continue to increase pressure on Hamas and "other terrorist operations" to stop them from regrouping and to end rocket attacks.   

"Our goal is to significantly decrease the Qassam (homemade rocket) launching capability," Peretz was quoted as saying while touring Israeli units deployed near Gaza early Wednesday.   

"This military operation targets terrorist elements. Army activities will continue until soldier Gilad Shalit is released," said one Israeli military broadcast on pirated radio frequencies in Arabic in Gaza.   

Shalit was captured by Gaza militants on June 25 in a raid claimed by three groups, including the military wing of Hamas, sparking four months of Israeli operations that have killed some 270 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers.   

An Israeli army spokesman confirmed Wednesday that a "major operation" was underway, codenamed "Operation Autumn Clouds", that three air raids had been carried out, and "30 armed Palestinians were hit."   

In the West Bank, the Palestinian president slammed the operation.   

"President Mahmud Abbas has strongly condemned the Israeli massacre that has left six martyrs and nearly 40 wounded in Beit Hanun," his office said.   

Branding the operation an "odious crime", Abbas called on the "occupation government to cease immediately all hostile actions against our people".   

He also urged the international community to "intervene rapidly" to end the aggressions and stave off a "new deterioration".   

The United States, Israel's most powerful ally, said this week that Israeli operations in Gaza were an issue of "self-defence."   

In Gaza City, Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya, who has denounced the warnings of expanding the Gaza offensive, rushed to call an emergency meeting of his Hamas-led cabinet.   

In Jerusalem, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said there was no intention of reoccupying the impoverished coastal strip from which Israel withdrew last year after a 38-year occupation.   

"Our aim is to hit the terrorists," he said.   

Israeli troops on the ground also launched a raid into the area around the disbanded international airport in the southern Gaza Strip and the nearby village of Shoka, Palestinian security sources said.