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New Israeli operation under wayMilitary operation follows rocket launches
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli tanks entered northern Gaza late Thursday and set up positions northeast of the Jabaliya refugee camp to monitor Qassam rockets being fired from the region, Israeli military sources said. Palestinian security sources said as many as 50 Israeli tanks and military vehicles were seen in the area. There were no immediate reports of fresh fighting. The Israel Defense Forces said the tank movement was an operational step to keep an eye on Qassam activity after three of the rockets were fired into Israel earlier in the day. Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks, which landed near the Israeli town of Sderot but did not injure anyone. The Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza was the site of an Israeli military offensive that began late Wednesday and led to bloody gun battles with Palestinians there. That raid left 11 Palestinians dead and wounded more than 100 others, Palestinian hospital officials said. That offensive was launched after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, killing 15 Israelis, though Israeli officials said it was part of an ongoing operation against terrorists and not a reprisal attack. The Israeli forces encountered fierce resistance from armed Palestinians in Jabaliya, both Palestinian and Israeli sources said. According to the IDF, "massive fire was opened on the soldiers," who were also targeted by hand grenades, antitank rockets and more than 10 explosive devices. The IDF said its forces demolished the house of a senior Hamas activist -- who was arrested by the forces -- as well as an adjacent weapons workshop. Three Palestinians were killed in the initial onset of violence, Palestinian sources said. Israel said the bulk of the Palestinian casualties occurred when a Palestinian explosive device detonated in a building during the Israeli military operation. But Palestinian witnesses said the Israeli forces fired a tank shell into a crowd of unarmed Palestinians, killing eight. The witnesses said the civilians had gathered to watch civil defense units fight a fire. The IDF said its soldiers fired three tank shells during the operation, two aimed at a Palestinian gunman who was killed, and the other toward a group of armed Palestinians preparing to launch a rocket-propelled grenade at the forces. The IDF said two of its soldiers were slightly injured. Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erakat blamed the Israeli government for the Palestinian deaths, saying it was "an act of revenge" for Wednesday's suicide bombing. That claim was dismissed by Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Ron Prosor, who said the Israeli forces were operating in Jabaliya as part of an ongoing anti-terror operation, noting that "it's tragic that civilians are getting killed." "Saeb Erakat knows that peace can start when terrorism ends," Prosor said. Elsewhere in the region, the Palestinian Red Crescent said a 52-year-old Palestinian woman was killed during clashes with IDF soldiers in Jaba village, near Jenin in the West Bank, and a 16-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire in Nablus. The IDF is checking the reports. A spokesman for Hamas lauded the bombing that gutted a suburban bus in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, but no claim of responsibility has been made. (Full story) The bus was carrying many high school and college students. Among the dead were a 13-year-old boy and girl, and two Israeli soldiers, authorities said. The U.S. State Department has labeled Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist group, a terrorist organization. The group's military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, has admitted responsibility for terror attacks against Israeli civilians as well as attacks against the Israeli military. Jerusalem Bureau Chief Mike Hanna and Correspondents Jerrold Kessel and Kelly Wallace contributed to this report
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