Israeli occupation troops backed by tanks and helicopters swept into Gaza Strip's Bureij refugee camp Friday, provoking a gunbattle and killing 10 people, Palestinian witnesses and medics said. The occupation army said the troops met fierce resistance in the three-hour incursion, which it said was intended to root out resistance men responsible for attacks on occupation troops in Gaza in a more than two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence.

Palestinian residents said at least three people were killed by a missile fired from a helicopter gunship. They said armed men fought the occupation troops but that seven of the nine men and the one woman killed were civilians.

It was not clear if any of them had been armed. But two of those killed were policemen who defended the camp, they said.

The high death toll and the timing of the assault, during the Muslim Eid el-Fitr holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, enraged Palestinians. The incursion and the bloodshed were sure to fuel more violence despite the United States' calls for calm as it prepares for possible war on Iraq.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network had established a presence in Palestinian-ruled areas of the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon.

But the attack did not appear to be connected with the charge, denied by Palestinian and Lebanese officials.

"It is a new massacre. What happened is a continuation of the massacres against the Palestinian people," Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"This is Israeli terrorism against our children, our women and our holy shrines from Rafah (in southern Gaza) to Jenin (in the West Bank). Isn't what they are doing daily terrorism?"

The occupation army dismissed reports of a massacre and its commander in Gaza, Brigadier Yisrael Ziv, said occupation troops entered the camp to blow up a house belonging to a resistance man, and to arrest three of his subordinates who belonged to a cell responsible for blowing up Israeli tanks.

Helicopter gunships fired three missiles 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.

BLOOD ON THE GROUND

Palestinian witnesses said occupation soldiers, along with 25 tanks and several helicopters, thrust into Bureij under cover of darkness, raking the area with fire as they entered the camp.

Palestinian resistance men 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.

Some of the dead bodies were dismembered

"It was as if the doors of hell were opened in our camp by the helicopters and the tanks," said 20-year-old resident Mohammed Al-Maqadama. "They have made this a bloody Eid."

Asked why the occupation troops had launched the raid on a Muslim holiday, occupation army spokeswoman Sharon Feingold said: "We go after them (militants) whenever we have intelligence."

"They don't respect our holidays. They attacked on Passover. There were more attacks during Ramadan," she said, referring to attacks by Palestinian resistance men this year during Passover, which marks the Jews' biblical exodus from Egypt.

Ziv said resistance had been fierce and the army believed it had hit "armed terrorists."

"We fired one shell from a helicopter at four armed men," he said. "We came upon a lot of resistance and the forces fired at armed resistance men. We identified 12-14 at whom we fired. At times the battle was fought at very close range, 10 meters (yards). They used Kalashnikov rifles and grenades and anti-tank shells."

One tank shell narrowly missed a Palestinian home, sending shrapnel flying and wounding five people, medics said. A second home, belonging to a Palestinian resistance man, was blown up by Israeli occupation troops, witnesses said.

A doctor at the local hospital said the 10 Palestinians killed included two pairs of brothers, and three men from one family. All the dead were in their 20s and 30s.

Doctors said 12 Palestinians were wounded in the violence.

An occupation army spokesman said the battle began when occupation troops approached the house of Shishniyah which they demolished, and "identified two resistance men who opened fire from close range. Occupation troops returned fire, and during the battle came under massive fire."

The occupation army said one soldier was slightly wounded.

At least 1,704 Palestinians and 668 Israelis have been killed since the uprising began in September 2000.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon addresses a news conference in Tel Aviv, December 5, 2002. Sharon said Osama bin Ladens al Qaeda network had established a presence in Palestinian-ruled areas of the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, while a Palestinian official denied the charge. (Nir Elias/Reuter