19 Palestinians Killed in Raid on Gaza

Israeli troops launched a major incursion into the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing 19 Palestinians, including the son of Gaza's most powerful Hamas leader, in the heaviest fighting for more than a year.

A volunteer farmer from Ecuador was killed by a Palestinian sniper while working at a communal farm across the boundary in Israel. Palestinian militants fired more than a dozen rockets into Israel, and Hamas said it too had fired four Qassam rockets. It was the first time the group has openly admitted firing Qassams since it seized control of Gaza last summer.

The most senior UN political official in the Middle East was in Gaza yesterday and described the fighting as "deeply alarming". Robert Serry, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, called for a "de-escalation" of the conflict.

The Israeli operation was the latest in a wave of attacks in recent months that have killed dozens of Palestinian militants. Most of the dead yesterday were Hamas fighters, although there were also at least two civilians among the dead. At least 45 people were injured.

The fighting comes days after President George Bush met Israeli and Palestinian leaders as part of a renewed effort to launch a peace process. While the Israeli government meets and negotiates with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president who is based in the West Bank, it has declared Gaza a "hostile entity" and threatened a full-scale invasion. Hamas officials fear another round of assassinations of their leaders.

Israeli officials said yesterday's operation was intended to prevent Palestinian militants from firing rockets. "Israel is acting to protect its civilian population from these daily rocket barrages," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.

Israeli military spokeswoman Major Avital Leibovich said: "The shooting of the Ecuadoran youth demonstrates the necessity of the defensive measures the military is carrying out with pinpoint operations."

Early yesterday Israeli tanks pushed into the district of al-Zaitoun, to the east of Gaza City, as helicopters struck targets on the ground. Among the Hamas fighters killed was Hussam Zahar, 24, son of Mahmoud Zahar, the most senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip and a former foreign minister. He was the second of Zahar's sons to have died in the conflict - the first was killed in a failed Israeli attempt to assassinate the Hamas leader four years ago.

Late in the afternoon Hamas supporters crowded into the Sheik Radwan cemetery for the burial. Zahar sat among the crowd and washed his son's body before the grave was filled in with sand. Zahar said Hamas would respond to the incursion. "We will defend ourselves by all means," he said.

In Damascus, the exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, accused the US of encouraging Israel to take a tougher line with Gaza. "This crime is the ugly fruit of Bush's visit to the region," he said. "He has incited the Zionists and has exerted pressure on the Palestinian side to become more hardline against Palestinian dialog."

Most of the Palestinian dead yesterday were in the al-Zaitoun district. Last night in the darkness of a power cut - routine in Gaza since Israel restricted fuel supplies to the strip - there were funeral tents set up on several street corners.