Beit Hanoun: Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinian women acting as human shields between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen during a clash at a Gaza mosque on Friday, witnesses said, before the gunmen escaped.

The dramatic events came on the third day of an Israeli assault on the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the largest operation it has conducted in the Gaza Strip in months, designed to put a stop to militants firing homemade rockets into Israel.

The 60 gunmen holed themselves up in the al-Nasir mosque on Thursday evening. On Friday, around 50 veiled Palestinian women, answering an appeal on local radio, marched toward the mosque, attempting to act as a shield against the Israeli troops.

Television footage showed Israeli forces opening fire and two of the women were killed. At least six others were wounded.

The Israeli army said it had fired at armed Palestinians. It said it was investigating whether it had also shot the women. A spokeswoman said the army had television footage showing armed men mingling among the women as they approached the mosque.

In the melee, the gunmen fled the shrine and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that heads the Palestinian Government, said they had also managed to escape from Beit Hanoun, which is almost entirely surrounded by Israeli troops. The Israeli army confirmed the gunmen had escaped.

Shortly after they fled, the roof of the mosque, one of the oldest in Gaza according to locals, collapsed, witnesses and the Israeli army said. The minaret was left standing, but most of the building was reduced to rubble.

The Israeli military, which earlier demolished a wall of the mosque compound and fired stun grenades and tear gas inside to try to force the gunmen to surrender, said the collapse was the result of gunfire and damage done during the 12-hour siege.

Earlier, an Israeli air strike killed four militants from Hamas as they travelled in a vehicle in northern Gaza, a narrow strip of land that is home to 1.4 million Palestinians.

With the latest attack, at least 22 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of them militants, since Israeli troops entered Beit Hanoun on Wednesday. One Israeli soldier has been killed in the operation.

The offensive has further weakened any chance of peace talks, already minimal since Hamas won elections. Hamas is officially sworn to Israel's destruction.

Pressure on

Despite the offensive, militants in other parts of Gaza launched six homemade missiles at the Israeli town of Sderot on Thursday, wounding at least two people, medical officials said.

In further violence, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian militant in the West Bank and critically wounded his 15-year-old brother, Palestinian militant sources said.

On Wednesday Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet agreed to continue Gaza operations and step up pressure on Hamas, a government statement said. It did not elaborate.

In a separate development, Palestinian officials said Hamas and Fatah had agreed in principle to form a new government.

Some sources said the deal could create a government of "technocrats" without direct affiliation to either faction.

The Gaza assault is one of the biggest in the Palestinian territories since Israel launched an offensive in Gaza to try to force the release of an Israeli soldier abducted by militants in a cross-border raid in June, as well as to halt rocket fire.

More than 280 Palestinians have been killed in the four-month-old offensive, about half of them civilians. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed.

(China Daily 11/04/2006 page7)