Palestinian Militants

Israeli troops backed by tanks and bulldozers crossed into the southern Gaza Strip and killed 10 Palestinian militants, a day after Israeli leaders ruled out a large offensive to stop daily rocket attacks from the territory. Some of the deaths came in fighting near Khan Yunis and some when Palestinian militants tried to attack an Israeli army post near the border fence. The toll was the highest in a single day in Gaza since June 27, when 12 were killed.

Israel killed four Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip: two in a ground assault and two in an airstrike against militants launching rockets at the Jewish state, Palestinian witnesses and medics said. The violence, the worst in coastal Gaza in 10 days, came a day before former British Prime Minister Tony Blair makes his first visit to the region as envoy for the so-called quartet of Middle East negotiators.

Rival Palestinian factions battled in the Gaza Strip today, raising the weekend toll to at least three dead and 39 injured in the fiercest internal fighting since a cease-fire was declared nearly a month ago. Hours after Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip infiltrated Israel at a key border crossing, Israeli aircraft bombed a building used by Islamic Jihad, causing two injuries, residents said.

Fighting in the Gaza Strip on Thursday killed at least six Palestinians, including a militant commander, as Israeli forces continued a drive to stop cross-border rocket attacks into southern Israel. Amid the clashes, a 57-year-old Palestinian woman blew herself up near Israeli soldiers, slightly injuring three. The suicide bomber was identified by family members as Fatma Najar, a grandmother and member of the military wing of the ruling Hamas movement.

Israel said Sunday that it had called off a planned aerial bombardment of a Palestinian militant's home after about 200 of his supporters, in a new defensive tactic, rushed to form a human shield around the residence. The mass mobilization in the Gaza Strip is believed to be the first employed by Palestinians to prevent an Israeli airstrike. It is part of a growing use of civilians, including women and children, to counter an Israeli offensive aimed at halting rocket fire into Israel from Gaza.

As Palestinian rockets were falling on the Israeli border town of Sderot earlier this year, people turned to the community's most powerful citizen, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, for protection. "All my friends would come to demonstrate against me outside my house," recalled Peretz, a former mayor of the town. "They asked why I was not sending in the army in full force."

Israeli troops killed seven Palestinian gunmen in airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday and set up a detention center outside the territory, part of an offensive aimed at stopping rocket fire on Israel during the weeklong Jewish holiday of Sukkot. On Saturday afternoon, aircraft fired three missiles at a car carrying two militants, killing at least one, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli army said the strike targeted militants with ties to the Fatah movement.

The Bush administration, having overlooked warnings to pay closer attention to the worsening situation in the Middle East, is suddenly confronting a dramatic flare-up of fighting that threatens not only to swamp Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts but also to inflame the entire region. The administration has stood mostly on the sidelines and stuck with its policy of watching from a distance as Israel battled Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.

Israeli missiles flattened a wing of the Hamas-run Palestinian Interior Ministry here today, in the latest wave of airstrikes meant to pressure Palestinian militants into freeing a captive Israeli soldier. Palestinians said several civilians were injured in the massive predawn blast at the building, which also was hit last week. Israel, meanwhile, weighed retaliation for the Palestinians' firing of a rocket into the coastal city of Ashkelon, the first such strike in a large Israeli city.