MIDDLE EAST:AT LEAST 19 Palestinians, among them a Reuters cameraman, were killed yesterday in Israeli military strikes in Gaza just hours after three Israeli soldiers were killed in an ambush by Palestinian militants in the coastal strip.
In the deadliest incident, 12 Palestinians were killed when an Israeli helicopter fired several missiles at two homes and a mosque near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Palestinian health officials said that all the dead were civilians and that there were also several children among the dead.
Israeli military officials said the missiles had been fired at a group of armed men and that troops had also come under mortar fire from the area that was hit. They said they were checking the reports of civilian casualties.
The Reuters cameraman, 23-year-old Fadal Shana, was killed in an airstrike in the area of Bureij. Witnesses who arrived at the scene said that Shana's body, along with those of two other civilians, was lying next to his jeep which was clearly marked with a "TV" sign.
Dozens of journalists rushed to the hospital where Shana had been taken to pay their respects. In comments posted on the Reuters website, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger demanded "an immediate investigation into the incident by the Israeli defence forces."
Israeli military officials expressed regret over Shana's death, but added that he was killed in an area in which there is "daily warfare against armed, radical and dangerous terror organisations" and this posed a threat to the lives of journalists working in the area.
Earlier yesterday, four Hamas gunmen were killed by Israeli troops in another gunfight not far from one of the border crossings between Israel and Gaza.
The three Israeli soldiers were killed after a unit was sent into the strip to confront two Palestinian militants who had been spotted planting an explosive device a few hundred metres from the border fence.
As the Israeli unit approached the militants, several other gunmen lying in ambush opened fire, killing two of the soldiers instantly.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, as well as the firing of more than 20 rockets at communities in southern Israel yesterday. "Raiding our areas will never be a picnic," said Abu Obeideh, a spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas.
Israeli military observers said the escalating violence in and around Gaza in recent days was an attempt by Hamas to smash the blockade Israel has imposed on the strip since the Islamic movement seized control there in June last year.
A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Dr Sami Abu-Zuheri, said that "the Israeli occupation will pay a heavy price for its continued crimes and for the continued blockade on the Palestinian people." Israel yesterday resumed fuel shipments into Gaza after they were stopped last week following an attack by Palestinian militants at the Nahal Oz terminal near the border fence. Two Israeli civilians were killed in the attack.
Palestinian officials said that eight truckloads of fuel were delivered yesterday, but that this would fall far short of what was needed by Gaza's 1.5 million residents.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert had told him Israel would accept a ceasefire in Gaza if Hamas halted the rocket fire and stopped smuggling weapons into the strip.
Since early March, when 120 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli raid and Palestinian militants for the first time fired rockets at a major Israeli city, Egypt has been trying to broker a truce.