GAZA CITY, 22 April 2004 — At least nine Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy, were killed as Israeli troops backed by Apache helicopters raided the Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya for a second day yesterday.

The raid came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised to continue targeting Palestinian leaders, following the weekend assassination of Hamas leader Abdelaziz Al-Rantisi.

At least two members of the radical Palestinian factions Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades who were involved in the fierce clashes with the Israeli troops, witnesses and Palestinian security sources said.

The two were identified as Muhammad Abd Al-Rahman Al-Ajuri and Suhail Al-Harsh, the local commander of Al-Aqsa Brigades in Jabalia.

Others were shot dead after throwing stones at the troops, witnesses said. A total of 45 people were also wounded.

A statement released by Al-Aqsa Brigades confirmed the killing of an Israeli soldier by a Palestinian sniper.

On Tuesday, Israeli troops killed five Palestinians in Beit Lahiya.

Palestinian security sources said more than 30 Israeli tanks moved into Um Al-Nasser and the Al-Nada neighborhood of Beit Lahiya in the predawn hours and the soldiers launched house-to-house searches in a hunt for Palestinians suspected of launching mortars and rockets on Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Several Israeli snipers positioned themselves atop houses and started shooting at civilians, witnesses said.

Earlier, Israeli bulldozers destroyed the main roads leading to Sheikh Zayed City in the area, Palestinian sources said.

An estimated 4,000 residents of the housing complex were unable to leave their homes, and the fighting prevented some 3,000 middle school and high-school students from reaching school, residents said. Some of the teenagers joined in the fighting, throwing rocks at Israeli troops, they said.

Israeli Apache helicopters periodically fired on the area. One teenage stone-thrower crumpled to the ground. Medics said he was in critical condition after being shot in the chest.

Thirteen-year-old Bilal Abu Lehaya told reporters moments earlier he came to “throw stones against the tanks and kick them out of Palestine”.

The Israeli army said its forces had come under heavy fire from gunmen, anti-tank missiles and grenades during the fighting, which continued yesterday afternoon.

Israeli bulldozers destroyed several greenhouses and uprooted trees in the neighborhood of Al-Manshiya of Beit Lahiya. They also destroyed the outer wall of the Rehabilitation Center for the Disabled.

Dr. Mahmoud Al-Assail, director of the Martyr Kamal Edwan hospital of Beit Lahiya told Arab News that the Israeli soldiers shot citizens in the upper parts of their bodies. He added that four of the killed people yesterday were shot in the chest.

Palestinian medical sources said that the Israeli occupation is preventing ambulances from evacuating the injured from the area. Israeli troops opened up heavy fire toward an ambulance in Beit Lahyia.

In the west Bank, eyewitnesses reported that around eight jeeps and armored personnel carriers swept into the western neighborhood of Tulkarem city and besieged a building forcing its inhabitants to depart their flats causing a state of panic among children and women.

Vowing “100 retaliations” for Rantissi, Palestinian militants have fired off salvoes of rockets and mortars at Israeli towns near Gaza and at Jewish settlements. At least nine Israelis have been lightly hurt.

The Palestinian Authority denounced the incursion as a serious escalation.

“The assassinations and serious escalations in the Israeli aggressions prove that Israel has no intention of withdrawing from Gaza as it is pretending, but is trying to sabotage all the efforts to re-launch the peace process,” Yasser Arafat’s chief adviser Nabil Abu Rudeina said.

“Israel has completely torn to pieces all peace accords,” said Palestinian Cabinet member Saeb Erekat. “I am afraid the worst is yet to come.”

Palestinians are also furious at US President George Bush for giving unprecedented assurances to Israel to support its “disengagement” plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. In a letter to Bush, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei said he hoped the president would reconsider.

Qorei said his Cabinet was considering a mass resignation to protest the US policy shift — a move that would give greater power to Arafat and be certain to make the United States uneasy.

Sharon pledged on Tuesday Israel would keep hunting militant leaders, saying: “We will not let up on them. We got rid of murderer No.1 and murderer No. 2 and it isn’t over, and the list is not short.”

Jibril Rajoub, the Palestinian national security adviser, said an Israeli attempt to assassinate Arafat is only a matter of time.

“An attack on Arafat’s life is only a matter of time because Arafat symbolizes the freedom” of the Palestinian people, Rajoub told the Egyptian weekly magazine Nahdat Mir.

Rajoub said the assassinations of Sheikh Yassin and Rantissi were designed “to abort the inter-Palestinian dialogue, which was on the point of succeeding” between Arafat’s Palestinian Authority and radical groups.

“The Israelis hit us to push us to react,” he said, adding that Hamas retaliation would be “legitimate”.