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A Palestinian woman killed by Israeli tank fire while protesting outside a mosque was among another 11 people killed in Israel's continued incursion into Gaza, medical sources said.
Mussada al-Huwaihi, a captain in the Palestinian intelligence services, was killed while demonstrating with a handful of other women outside the mosque in the northern Gaza city of Beit Hanun where around 100 Palestinian men had taken refuge, they said.
Israeli tanks laid siege to the mosque after the men fled into the complex to avoid demands by the Israeli army that all men between the ages of 16 and 45 should gather at the local stadium, witnesses said.
The tanks retreated after about two hours and the men left the mosque, the witnesses said.
Three Hamas militants were later killed by an air raid on the Jabaliya refugee camp, medics said.
Earlier in the day, medics said four other Palestinians including a 70-year-old man and two militants, were killed by Israeli fire in Beit Hanun, which was reoccupied by Israeli forces when they launched Operation Autumn Clouds early Wednesday.
During the day, Israeli helicopters hovered above the town as smoke rose from several buildings amid sporadic machine gun fire and explosions.
In an Arabic-language radio broadcast, the army urged residents to stay indoors: “The IDF (Israel Defense Force) has entered Beit Hanun and asks all the inhabitants to stay at home until further notice,” it said.
Many residents were heeding the warnings.
“We haven't moved from here for two days,” said Abu Luay Zaanin from his home on the outskirts of town. “They are shooting at anything that moves.”
In all, 16 Palestinians, including 10 militants, and an Israeli soldier have been killed in the operation, one of Israel's largest since militants seized a soldier in June.
More than 60 people, including three women and 10 children, have been wounded.
Palestinian security sources said that around 100 Palestinians had been detained during the operation in the town that Israeli officials said had become a launchpad for militants firing rockets into the Jewish state.
General Yoav Galand told army radio that “our aim is to apply permanent pressure on the terrorists to make the firing of rockets more difficult.”
But the incursion by infantry units, backed up by tanks and air support, has failed to stop the rocket fire. Three more hit Israeli territory Thursday, lightly wounding two people, after eight were fired Wednesday when one person was slightly wounded.
Moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and the head of the Islamist-led government, prime minister Ismail Haniya, both condemned the new Israeli offensive Wednesday, describing it as a “massacre.”
On Thursday, Abbas called on Israel's most powerful ally, the United States, to intervene to stop the operation.
During a meeting at his Ramallah office with US assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs David Welch, Abbas “demanded that the American administration intervene to stop this aggression,” Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters.
Also Thursday, prime minister Haniya vowed before thousands of supporters of his Hamas movement in Gaza City that Israel's “terrorist and military option” will fail.
“We say to them (the Israelis): you have failed to destroy the will (of the Palestinians) and to change the political programme (of Hamas) with your unjust siege. You will fail in your terrorist and military option,” Haniya said in front of parliament.
The chairman of Israeli parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, Tzahi Hanegbi, said Israel had launched the operation having learned the lessons of the July-August war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“What happened with Hezbollah has taught us that to wait for years without doing anything can cost us dearly,” Hanegbi, a close ally of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, told army radio.
In recent weeks, Israeli officials have repeatedly accused Gaza-based militants of smuggling weapons from Egypt via tunnels and warned that the army could launch a massive operation to stem the flow.
“A war with Hamas is inevitable, it has to be prepared for,” Hanegbi said.
Hamas's armed wing was one of three militant groups that claimed responsibility for a June 25 raid in which two soldiers were killed and a third, Corporal Gilad Shalit, was captured.
Israeli officials have repeatedly said that despite their punishing four-month offensive, which has left more than 270 Palestinians and three soldiers dead, they have no intention of reoccupying the Gaza Strip following last year's withdrawal of troops and settlers after a 38-year occupation.
