A total of 12 Palestinians were killed in 24 hours during fierce gun-battles after the Israeli army launched a major operation in the northern Gaza Strip, medical sources and witnesses said Wednesday.
Eight Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli troops on Wednesday, including a 12-year-old boy, while another four were killed during the clashes in the Beit Lahiya area on Tuesday evening at the start of the operation.
At least two members of the radical Palestinian factions Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who were involved in the armed clashes with the Israeli troops, witnesses and Palestinian security sources said.
But others were shot dead after throwing stones at the troops, witnesses said.
A total of 45 people were also wounded in the clashes, including five who were injured when an Israeli helicopter fired two rockets in their direction.
An AFP correspondent saw Palestinian fighters open fire at an Israeli tank with rocket-propelled grenade from which a cloud of smoke was clearly visible.
"We have destroyed or damaged several Israeli tanks," said one fighter from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
As he ushered one of his sons away from the scene of the clashes, Abu Mohammed al-Dahur said tanks had surrounded his home in which his wife and 10 other children were still inside.
"I have only been able to get away with one of my sons. I pray to God to protect the others," he said.
Many of the houses in the town had been severely damaged by the shooting, while fields had been clearly razed by army bulldozers.
An army spokesman said troops had been operating in the area since Tuesday in order to "foil the firing of Qassam rockets and mortar bombs at Israeli communities in and outside the Gaza Strip.
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