**Israeli Troops Kill 12 Palestinians **
1 hour, 37 minutes ago
By DAN PERRY, Associated Press Writer
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops raided a Hamas stronghold and exchanged fire with dozens of masked gunmen Thursday, a day after the militant group set off a suicide bomb in Tel Aviv and mediators presented a new Mideast peace plan. **Ten Palestinians were killed, including two boys ages 2 and 13. **
It was the most intense gunbattle in Gaza in 31 months of fighting. Separately, **two Palestinians were killed in an exchange of fire with soldiers in the West Bank. **
The fighting occurred as Israeli and Palestinian leaders voiced conflicting interpretations of the long-awaited “road map” peace plan, the latest attempt by international mediators to end the violence.
Diplomats representing the so-called Quartet of Mideast mediators — the United States, European Union (news - web sites), United Nations (news - web sites) and Russia — presented the peace plan to Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Wednesday after Mahmoud Abbas took office as the first Palestinian prime minister.
The Israeli military did not link the raid to Wednesday’s bombing in a Tel Aviv pub, in which three Israelis were killed and 55 wounded. **The target of the Gaza incursion was Yousef Abu Hein, a top Hamas bombmaker and fugitive, who was killed in the fighting, his body riddled by more than 20 bullets. **
The raid began at about 1:50 a.m., when tanks, jeeps and undercover troops in passenger cars entered Gaza City’s Shijaiyah neighborhood, a Hamas stronghold. More than 200 gunmen, many of them wearing black masks, rushed to the scene, as mosque loudspeakers called for a “jihad,” or holy war.
Intense fighting continued into the afternoon. Palestinians were armed with assault rifles and anti-tank missiles, and some rigged wiring to large canisters that appeared to hold explosives.
Dr. Fadel Abu Hein, a prominent child psychologist and a brother of the wanted man, said his four-story apartment building came under intense fire.
“We are sitting in full darkness. Children are screaming. We are trying to calm them down, but bullets are coming from all directions,” he said.
After daybreak, hundreds of bystanders thronged the area of battle. An AP reporter saw two boys, ages 12 and 14, hit by Israeli fire as they tried to run away from a burst of shooting. The 14-year-old was struck by a bullet in the neck, and doctors later said he was paralyzed from the neck down.
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Those killed were six gunmen, two adult civilians, including a mentally handicapped man, and two boys, ages two and 13, doctors said. Sixty-five Palestinians were wounded, including 12 who were in critical condition.
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Two-year-old Amer Ayad was hit by a bullet to the head while he was near a window in his home, said his father Ahmed, a blacksmith. “Is this the new peace President Bush (news - web sites) promised?” Ayad said. “They wrote the answer using the blood of my son.”
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Eight Israeli soldiers were wounded, including one who was in serious condition, the military said.
The incursion came a day after Hamas and another Palestinian group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv pub. The blast killed three bystanders and wounded 55 others. It was not clear whether the Israeli incursion was in response to the bombing.
The fighting underscored the difficulties in implementing the road map. Yet, there is some hope that the plan will succeed in ending the fighting where others have failed.
It is supported by a rare global consensus that neither of the warring sides wants to rebuff. Also, it comes at a time when U.S. clout in the Middle East is at a high point in the wake of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s ouster in Iraq (news - web sites).
“For the first time in a very long time, Israel and the international community have a partner to go back to the table with,” U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told The Associated Press after meeting Abbas. “We have, hopefully, a peace process going.”
The two sides started the process at odds. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s office issued a statement saying he had received the document “for the purpose of formulating comments on the wording.” Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, in contrast, called for “implementing the road map immediately.”
Palestinian leaders accused Israel of trying to sabotage the new peace plan. The Gaza raid was meant to “create more provocation, to push for more Palestinian reaction to the Israeli aggression,” Mohammed Dahlan, a senior security official, said Thursday, after the first Cabinet meeting chaired by Abbas.
The three-year outline starts with a Palestinian crackdown on terror groups and an Israeli freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), combined with a “progressive” Israeli pullout from the autonomous Palestinian zones its troops have reoccupied during the current round of fighting.
Acting U.S. consul-general Jeff Feltman said “the road map is a guideline, it’s not a sacred text or treaty.” Larsen also said implementation would be negotiated, and a diplomatic source said the United States might dispatch an envoy for the task.
Both governments say they want to end violence that has killed 2,287 people on the Palestinian side and 763 people on the Israeli side since September 2000. But past plans have failed.
Israel has asked for more than a dozen changes to this one, including making a Palestinian crackdown on terror groups the condition for any progress.
palestinians are not allowed to have their own army, police or weapons. how can they protect themselves from israeli terrorists if they won’t have any weapons to fight back? isreal is deliberately targetting the important palestinians figures to tighten its hold. once they are out of the way, they’ll do the same thing USA have done in iraq. put in a proxy government that will obey then 
