Israel's army killed at least 19 Palestinians today in the heaviest raid in the Gaza Strip for years as tanks and infantry attacked targets in the Rafah refugee camp despite an international outcry.
The assault drew UN and European Union condemnation given Israeli threats to destroy hundreds of Palestinian homes there.
Thousands of Palestinian houses have been razed since they began a revolt in occupied territory in 2000, UN figures show.
But the army said there were no plans for any systematic demolition during what it called an open-ended operation to stop the smuggling of weapons through tunnels from nearby Egypt.
US President George W. Bush called the Gaza bloodshed "troubling" but, addressing Jewish-Americans in a tight election campaign, told the powerful pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC that Israel "has every right to defend itself from terror".
A White House spokesman said it was in touch with the Israelis on the humanitarian impact of their incursion and was assured its goal was to stymie smuggling, not level homes.
The raid exacted the highest single-day Palestinian death toll - militants and civilians alike - since May 2002 when 23 were killed in an army sweep into the nearby Khan Younis area.
The Rafah hospital morgue became so overloaded today that five bodies were shifted to vegetable freezers in a nearby market for preservation, medics said.
Violence has worsened in Gaza since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed evacuating troops and Jewish settlers in a plan backed by most Israelis and the United States, but held up by opposition from hardliners in his right-wing party.