Israeli troops swept into Gaza Strip’s Bureij refugee camp on Friday, provoking a gunbattle and killing ten people, Palestinian witnesses. The Army said the troops met fierce resistance in the three-hour incursion, which it said was intended to root out militants responsible for attacks on troops in Gaza. The Israeli Army’s commander in Gaza, Brigadier Yisrael Ziv, said troops entered the camp to blow up a house belonging to a militant, and to arrest three of his subordinates who belonged to a cell responsible for blowing up Israeli tanks. Helicopter gunships fired three missiles on Wednesday at a building in central Gaza City, killing Mustafa Saba, who was considered the ‘‘engineer’’ of bombs which blew up three Israeli tanks this year and killed seven crewmen. Palestinian witnesses said soldiers, along with 25 tanks and several helicopters, thrust into Bureij, raking the area with fire as they entered the camp. Palestinian gunmen returned fire and a helicopter fired a missile into a street, killing at least three people and splattering a nearby wall with blood, witnesses said. One tank shell narrowly missed a Palestinian home, sending shrapnel flying and wounding five people, medics said. A second home, belonging to a Palestinian militant, was blown up by Israeli troops, witnesses said. The Army identified the militant as Eyman Shishniyah, described by Palestinians as a member of the Popular Resistance Committees, a coalition of Islamic and secular militants. The Army said Shishniyah, a wanted fugitive, led the cell responsible for one of the three attacks on Israeli tanks earlier this year, which killed three crewmen in the tank. Doctors said 12 Palestinians were wounded in the violence. ‘‘It was as if the doors of hell were opened in our camp by the helicopters and the tanks,’’ said a resident Mohammed Al-Maqadama. ‘‘They have made this a bloody Eid.’’ (Reuters)
