Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday praised an Israeli raid that killed 14 Palestinians and wounded 80 and said there would be more operations in the Gaza Strip , but expressed regret for civilian casualties. The Palestinians, who are waging a two-year-old uprising against Israeli occupation, identified the dead and most of the wounded as civilians. Ten people were killed by a missile fired from a helicopter into a crowd gathered near a mosque.

Sharon vowed the occupation army would keep up pressure on resistance men in the Gaza Strip despite U.S. criticism of Monday's attack in Khan Younis at a time when Washington is pursuing Arab support for a possible war on Iraq.

"I think that the operation was a success," Sharon told reporters at a meeting with President Moshe Katzav. "We have to take into consideration that the Israeli forces are making every effort to contain raids and attacks by terrorist organizations."

"Most of the casualties there were terrorists and are terrorists, but still there were some civilians. Therefore I express my sorrow for that," Sharon said.

It was the highest civilian death toll in Gaza since July 23 when a bomb dropped by an Israeli plane killed 13 civilians as well as its target, Hamas's military commander.

The State Department said the United States was "deeply troubled" by the operation in a crowded civilian area.

Rashid Abu Shbak, chief of Palestinian Preventive Security in the Gaza Strip, told Reuters: "It was clear for the whole world that the missile of death in Khan Younis was fired against a crowd of children, unarmed men and women."

"They made this massacre against our people," Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said on Monday at a meeting in his West Bank presidential compound with Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief.

Solana was in the region pushing an initiative on behalf of an international "quartet" of Middle East peace brokers. The United Nations , part of the "quartet," said the civilian deaths in the Gaza attack could escalate the Middle East conflict.

"Such actions have no legal or moral justification," a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

HAMAS VOWS REVENGE

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer issued a statement saying most of those killed in the armor, infantry and air operation were resistance men who fired at Israeli occupation forces.

He said the raid was to "stop terrorist attacks and arrest Hamas terrorists." But Israeli media reports said the occupation army failed to capture two senior resistance men it sought.

Hamas, which has killed scores of Israelis in resistance bombings, vowed to avenge the Palestinian deaths in the raid.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called for an Israeli military investigation, saying the United States expected "immediate steps to be taken to prevent the recurrence of tragic incidents such as these."

In a more muted response, Sean McCormack, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said: "Israel has a right to defend itself.

"Israel should, however, consider carefully the consequences of its actions -- that includes the need to take every measure to prevent the loss of innocent life in fighting terror."

Despite that, Sharon said on Tuesday: "There will be more operations in the Gaza Strip." The army said it detained three suspected resistance men in central Gaza Strip overnight.

Sharon travels to Washington next week for his seventh White House visit since taking office but said on Tuesday that because of the situation in the Middle East he had canceled plans to continue on to New York to meet U.S. Jewish leaders.

President Bush is widely expected to tell Sharon to avoid action that could upset a U.S. war effort against Iraq and refrain from retaliating if Baghdad attacks Israel with missiles as it did in the 1991 Gulf war .

At least five people, including Palestinian riot police chief Colonel Rageh Abu Lehiya, were killed in separate fighting between Hamas and Palestinian security occupation forces in the Gaza Strip on Monday.

The bloodshed began with what Palestinian security officials said was Abu Lehiya's kidnapping by 10 Hamas men, who then killed him.

Hamas officials said the police chief was killed in a private vendetta attack by the family of a man who was shot dead by police during a demonstration a year ago. The family are well-known Hamas supporters.

At least 1,597 Palestinians and 602 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising for statehood erupted in September 2000.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon attends a meeting in Jerusalem Oct. 8, 2002. Sharon said on Tuesday an occupation army raid which killed 14 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was a successful operation against resistance men, but regretted some civilians were harmed. (Nir Elias/Reuters)