Gunmen battle Israelis in camps

GAZA - Israeli forces clashed with gunmen in two Gaza Strip refugee camps yesterday and then withdrew, hours after the Army killed four Palestinians heading to attack Jewish settlements.

In a separate incident, police said they killed a gunman who broke into a home at an Israeli township near the West Bank boundary. The gunman's intended hostages, an Israeli couple, escaped before police moved in and sealed off the building.

Israeli military sources confirmed the night-time incursion into Nusairat and Bureij camps in the central Gaza Strip, considered strongholds of Palestinian militants who have waged an uprising for independence for more than two years.

Ambulance workers said several Palestinians were wounded.

The violence came amid United States calls for Middle East calm to avoid jarring Washington's plans for possible war on Iraq.

Called to arms from mosque loudspeakers, gunmen flocked to the streets of Nusairat and Bureij and exchanged shots with Israeli troops on the outskirts of the camps.

Armoured bulldozers were visible among the Israeli forces. In the past, these have been used to demolish the family homes of Palestinian suicide bombers and other militants in what Israel calls a deterrent measure.

The troops withdrew after two hours, leaving dozens of gunmen jubilant at their "victory". A food warehouse on the outskirts of Bureij was damaged by an Israeli tank, but there was no indication of what the mission was meant to achieve.

In Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza, where Israeli forces regularly operate to uncover gunrunner tunnels from nearby Egypt, Palestinian witnesses said bulldozers demolished at least four structures. The Army did not comment.

In Maor, an Israeli agricultural commune near the northern West Bank boundary, security forces killed a suspected Palestinian gunman holed up in an apartment after a stand-off early on Thursday.

"After securing the building, our counter-terrorist unit made contact with the terrorist who was armed with an M-16 and still posing threat, and killed him," police said.

Police confirmed that a married couple had escaped, but denied media reports that two children had also been in the apartment.

The gunman fired one shot as he broke into the apartment, but his assault rifle jammed before he could hurt anyone, police said.

There was no immediate reaction from Palestinian factions.

Palestinian militants waging an independence uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have regularly attacked targets in Israel proper, mostly suicide bombings and shootings sprees.

Yesterday, troops shot dead three Palestinian teenagers who were trying to attack a Jewish settlement in northern Gaza. The Army also said it had killed a Palestinian militant on his way to bomb a settlement in the West Bank.

A senior Israeli commander said the three poorly armed youths had been intercepted after climbing a security fence protecting the Elei Sinai settlement.

"They were dressed in dark civilian clothes and were advancing in a crouch, commando-style," Colonel Ofer Shafran, based in the area, said.

"We found two wire-cutters and a knife on their bodies."

Palestinian security sources and the youths' relatives said the youths had apparently acted independently, as they had no known militant affiliations. Palestinian minors have taken on similar "suicide missions" on at least two other occasions.

Near the West Bank city of Nablus, troops fired on a Palestinian who the Army said had been making his way between the Yitzhar and Immanuel settlements. Explosives in his bag went off, killing him.

"We believe the terrorist's bomb was intended for one of the nearby settlements," an Army spokeswoman said.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: The Middle East