Twelve dead in Gaza raid

One of the victims of the raid is prepared for burial
Palestinian sources say 12 people have been killed and many more injured during a fresh Israeli incursion in the Gaza Strip.

A force of Israeli tanks and Apache helicopters entered the Palestinian city of Khan Younis and its adjacent refugee camp in the early hours ofMonday morning.

Palestinian hospital sources say a further eight people were injured when Israeli machine gun fire and a tank shell hit a hospital to which thedead and injured from the earlier
incursion were being taken.

Witnesses said the Israeli forces met strong resistance from Palestinian gunmen.

Eight of the Palestinians killed were said to have occurred when an Israeli helicopter fired a missile near a crowd
of Palestinians as they emerged from their shelters, having heard the Israeli tanks pulling out.

At least three civilians - a woman, a child and an elderly man - were reported to be among the dead.

It remained unclear why the Israelis launched the raid or what their target might have been, but on Sunday the army alleged militants had fired a missile into an empty house in a neighbouring Jewish settlement.

Senior Palestinian negotiator
Saeb Erekat called on the
international community to protect
the Palestinians and said the raid
was timed to disrupt the visit of
Javier Solana, the foreign policy
chief of the European Union, to
the region.

"Every time we witness efforts to
revive the peace process and put
it back on track, like those being
exerted now by Solana, the Israeli
Government moves to conduct
such war crimes and murder
innocent civilians because the
end game of the Israeli
government is to resume full
occupation of the Gaza Strip and
the West Bank," Mr Erekat said.

'Weapons workshops'

According to the governor or Khan Younis, explosions were heard in the industrial area of the city - indicating that Israeli forces may have been targeting metal workshops they say produce explosives.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Gaza
says the city is one of the
bloodiest frontlines of resistance
in the conflict.

She says the city, home to
100,000 Palestinian refugees,
has been increasingly encircled by
Jewish settlements and Israeli
military bases.

It is a stronghold of the Islamist
Hamas movement, responsible for
some of the suicide attacks
against Israelis.

The fresh bloodshed came Javier
Solana prepared for talks with
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Pushing for peace

Mr Solana had spent Sunday with Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

He is in the region to push a peace plan drawn up by the quartet - the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the EU - aimed at
persuading Israeli troops to withdraw from the West Bank and the
Palestinians to reform their governing authority.

Israel is continuing to occupy a string of West Bank cities where it
imposes military curfews on Palestinian civilians, saying the tactic helps
prevent further attacks.

According to Israeli army radio, Mr Ben-Eliezer told Mr Solana to put
more pressure on Palestinians to stop militants from attacking civilians in their campaign to end Israeli occupation.

Mr Arafat's security adviser, who had met Mr Solana ahead of his talks with the Palestinian leader, said the Monday meeting would "look at the steps Israel has taken to destroy peace efforts and the ongoing attacks
against the Palestinian people".