JERUSALEM — A fierce exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen Thursday turned a Gaza Strip shantytown into a battleground where at least six Palestinians, including two women and two children, were killed and an estimated 50 others wounded, according to Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses.
The deaths come amid criticism by the Bush administration and Israeli human rights activists over a recent upsurge in civilian deaths during Israeli military operations in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel expressed regret over the latest loss of life but said Palestinian gunmen often use crowded residential neighborhoods as cover when attacking Israeli troops.
The firefight in the town of Rafah, hard by the Egyptian border at Gaza's southern tip, began when Palestinian gunmen fired on Israeli armored bulldozers that were carrying out fortification work Thursday afternoon on a road along the frontier, said Lt. Col. Olivier Rafowicz, a spokesman for the Israeli military.
Palestinian residents of the Rafah refugee camp described huddling together as machine-gun fire and tank shells slammed into a crowded warren of cinderblock homes threaded by narrow alleyways, known as Block O.
"Kids were crying -- I was trying to hold a 6-year-old kid who was hurt, and a tank fired right toward us," said Hussein Abed Al, a 21-year-old Palestinian who was bloodied by shrapnel wounds to his hand and leg.
Dr. Ali Moussa, head of Rafah hospital, said that six people were confirmed dead and that, based on statements from arriving wounded, at least two more bodies were believed to be lying in the rubble. During the fighting, which lasted more than an hour, heavy machine-gun fire struck a boys school operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, forcing teachers and pupils to seek shelter in the basement, the agency said.
Gaza, long a flashpoint for violence and known to be a stronghold of militant groups, has suffered a disproportionate share of civilian deaths in recent weeks.
Israel says a string of recent army operations in Gaza is aimed at uprooting the infrastructure and targeting the leadership of militant groups, such as Hamas, that have carried out bombings and attacks on Israelis.
However, Gaza is an extremely crowded area, and it is difficult for ordinary Palestinians to stay out of harm's way.
