Nazir Majally, Asharq Al-Awsat

GAZA CITY, 12 February 2004 — Israeli troops killed at least 14 Palestinians and wounded more than 50 people in one of the bloodiest days in Gaza in months in two areas of the Gaza Strip early yesterday.

The fiercest attack took place in the Shajaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City. Twelve people, including the son of a prominent Palestinian leader and a senior Hamas activist, were killed and more than 40 were wounded, Palestinian doctors said.

In a separate raid in the Rafah area along the Gaza-Egypt border, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians as they searched for tunnels used for arms smuggling. The forces demolished three houses and razed citrus and olive groves.

The incursion in Gaza City happened before dawn and continued for several hours. By early afternoon, the troops pulled out, the army and witnesses said.

During the raid, dozens of youths stood in the streets watching as gunfire whizzed by.

Later in the day, the Israeli Army blew up the house of a Hamas fighter who was killed and sent tanks into the neighborhood.

The dead Palestinians included 10 fighters, Palestinian sources said.

They included Mohammed Hilles, 18, the son of Ahmed Hilles, the top leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction in Gaza, and senior Hamas activist Hani Abu Skhaila.

Hamas said Abu Skhaila had survived two previous Israeli attempts to kill him, including a missile strike on his car last June in which he suffered shrapnel wounds.

Hamas, which called Abu Skhaila “the great brave hero,” said he had participated in several deadly attacks on Israelis, including a suicide bombing last month that killed four people at a border checkpoint.

At least nine of the wounded were in critical condition, doctors said. The wounded included at least three youths who were hit as they watched from side streets, witnesses and doctors said.

Hamas vowed retaliation. In a statement, the group’s militant wing called on all of its cells to carry out “huge martyrdom operations.”

Thousands of people participated in funeral prayers later in the day. Masked men in military uniforms carried bodies on stretchers, while others fired machine guns into the air.

“God willing, our retaliation will be soon and (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon should prepare plastic bags to collect the remains of his soldiers,” said one of the gunmen.

The military said it had entered the area to search for fighters who fired rockets at nearby Jewish settlements.

“There was great resistance by armed cells in a very densely populated area,” said Col. Yoel Strick, a division commander in the Gaza Strip.

Strick said that the Israeli troops shot and killed the fighters in a house.