Israeli troops kill 15 Palestinians in Gaza

A Palestinian man wounded by Israeli fire is wheeled into a hospital in Gaza City yesterday. At least 15 people were killed Tuesday as fighting escalated around the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip a day after Israel and the Palestinians launched talks on the core issues of their conflict. Photo: AFP

At least 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on Tuesday as fighting around the Hamas-run Gaza Strip escalated a day after the two sides launched talks on the core issues of their conflict.
In the deadliest single day of violence in months, militants in Gaza also shot dead a civilian just inside Israel in a rare sniper attack.
The fighting erupted a day after a meeting of top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, hot on the heels of US President George W. Bush's visit and his prediction of a peace treaty by the time he leaves office in a year.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas branded the Gaza operation a "massacre" and warned that it flew in the face of the peace efforts relaunched at a US conference less than two months ago.
"What happened today is a massacre, a slaughter against the Palestinian people," Abbas told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "Our people cannot keep silent over these massacres. These massacres cannot bring peace."
Since the two sides formally relaunched peace talks at the US-hosted conference in late November, some 115 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza, according to an AFP count.
The Israeli assaults on Gaza have sown further discord between Israel and the Palestinians, who are also angry over the expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied land in the West Bank despite the revived negotiations.
Tuesday's operation saw a heavy exchange of fire between soldiers and militants in eastern Gaza City, medics and witnesses said.
Among the dead were 10 members of Hamas's armed wing, including the son of hardline Hamas leader Mahmud Zahar, who vowed "to answer Israel in the only language that it knows."
The identities of the others killed were not immediately known. About 45 other Palestinians, both militants and civilians, were wounded.
An army spokeswoman said Israeli troops opened fire on a group of armed Palestinians and a car containing gunmen. "The soldiers identified hitting 10 armed men," she said.
Government spokesman Mark Regev said the operation came because of rocket attacks on Israel.
"This is the result, unfortunately, of the ongoing attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip," he said. "Over the last months there have been continuous firing of rockets and mortar shells against our civilian population."
In the latest such attack, an Ecuadorian male volunteer at a kibbutz collective farm was shot dead by bullets fired from Gaza in an attack claimed by Hamas.
Israel launches near-daily air and ground raids in Gaza aiming to stop rocket and mortar fire from the territory which has been under Hamas control for the past seven months.
On Monday, top negotiators began talks on the thorniest issues at the heart of the decades-old conflict -- borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees.