Israeli occupation forces clashed with resistance men in two Gaza Strip refugee camps early Thursday and then withdrew, hours after the occupation army killed four Palestinians heading to attack Jewish settlements. In a separate incident, police said they killed a resistance man who broke into a home at an Israeli township near the West Bank boundary.

The attacker intended to take hostages, an Israeli couple, who escaped before police occupation troops moved in and sealed off the building.

Israeli occupation army sources confirmed the night-time military incursion into Nusairat and Bureij camps in the central Gaza Strip, considered among the strongholds of Palestinian armed resistance waging a more than two-year-old uprising for independence.

Ambulance workers said several Palestinians were wounded.

Occupation Troops Forced to Withdraw From Camps After Two Hours Battle

Called to arms from mosque loudspeakers, resistance men rushed to the streets of Nusairat and Bureij and exchanged shots with Israeli occupation troops on the outskirts of the camps, scattering occasionally under fire from assault helicopters overhead.

Armored bulldozers were visible among the Israeli occupation forces.

The troops withdrew after two hours leaving dozens of activists jubilant at their "victory." An Israeli tank damaged a food warehouse on the outskirts of Bureij, but there was no indication of what the mission was meant to achieve.

In Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza, Palestinian witnesses said bulldozers demolished at least four structures.

Acting Independently

Wednesday night, troops shot dead three Palestinian teenagers who were trying to attack a Jewish settlement in northern Gaza. The occupation army also said it had killed a Palestinian activist on his way to bomb a settlement in the West Bank.

Palestinian security sources and the youths' relatives said the youths had apparently acted independently, as they had no known resistance group affiliations. Palestinian minors have taken on similar "bombing missions" on at least two other occasions.

Near the West Bank city of Nablus, occupation troops fired on a Palestinian who the occupation army said had been making his way between the Yitzhar and Immanuel settlements. Explosives in his bag went off, killing him.

Also Wednesday, the occupation army said its forces had demolished the Nablus home of a Palestinian who bombed a fast-food stand in the central Israeli town of Herzliya in June, killing a girl, as well as the home of an activist in Khan Younis in Gaza.

PHOTO CAPTION

Relatives mourn at Gaza City's hospital over the death of Palestinian Tareq, 16, and Mohamed Douas, 15, killed by Israeli occupation troops January 1, 2003. Photo by Andrea Comas/Reuters