Israeli tank assault kills 18 Palestinians

JERUSALEM -- After losing 13 soldiers in the past week, Israel is changing its military tactics to deal with what it views as a guerrilla war, a top Israeli official said. But the violence raged on with 22 Palestinians killed in a day of clashes that continued into Thursday.\nIsraeli strikes claimed 18 Palestinians lives on Wednesday. With hardly a pause, Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza City early Thursday for the first time in the conflict and blew up a local radio station, witnesses said.\nTroops also killed four Palestinians and wounded 35 in the Rafah refugee camp near the Egyptian border in a morning raid, Palestinians said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.\nThe past week has been one of the bloodiest since Israeli-Palestinian fighting began in September 2000. Seventeen Israelis and 51 Palestinians were killed.\nIn Wednesday's fighting, Israeli troops fired missiles, tank shells and machine guns at Palestinian Authority positions in reprisals for a Palestinian ambush that killed six Israeli soldiers. Also, Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian militants who were about to fire rockets at Israel, according to media reports and Palestinian officials.\nThe ambush Tuesday night at an Israeli military checkpoint near the village of Ein Arik, west of Ramallah, sparked a debate on the wisdom of maintaining the scores of military roadblocks throughout the West Bank and Gaza.\nPrime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said Israel would change strategy to focus on "small-scale counter-guerrilla, counter-terrorist operations."\nAfter a meeting of top ministers, Sharon announced a "different course of action." He gave no details, but Gissin said Israel would reduce the number of large operations and in favor of smaller-scale actions "with the purpose of really trying to tip the terrorists off-balance."\nThat would include a continuation of the targeted killings of militants suspected of involvement in terrorism against Israelis, the spokesman said.\nThe Palestinians might be changing their tactics, as well. Several Palestinians close to the militant groups said the checkpoint assault reflected a new focus: Targeting Israel's occupation in the West Bank and Gaza as opposed to attacks within Israel itself.\nThe Palestinians said on condition of anonymity that the aim is to focus attention on the lands Palestinians claim for a state and rally world support.\nBoth sides buried their dead on Wednesday. Thousands of angry Palestinians marched behind coffins throughout the Palestinian areas, pledging revenge, while weeping Israelis buried their soldiers amid calls for new, harsher measures to stop the violence.\nMeanwhile, Palestinians asked for an urgent U.N. Security Council meeting, moving to hold Israel accountable for what they said was a "crisis situation." Diplomats said consultations could be held Thursday morning in New York.\nArafat has been trapped in his West Bank headquarters in the town of Ramallah, surrounded by Israeli tanks, for more than two months. Gissin said Israel will not target him but suggested it might stop the stream of foreign diplomats going to meet him there.\nSharon said that Israeli pressure on Arafat is meant to speed his replacement by other leaders. "The heavier the pressure will be, the shorter will be the time when we will perhaps have someone else to negotiate," Sharon told U.S. Jewish leaders.\nArafat appeared unimpressed. "Neither tanks nor planes can scare us, they won't prevent us from achieving our demands," said the Palestinian leader.\nHours earlier, Israeli planes and helicopters retaliated for the roadblock assault, fired a missile at a police structure a few dozen yards from his Ramallah headquarters. At the same time early Wednesday, Israel also targeted Arafat's other office, on the beachfront in Gaza City, hitting it with machine gun fire and a missile from warships off the coast. Four guards were killed.\nSimultaneously, Israeli warplanes and helicopters pounded police buildings nearby in Gaza City and in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.\nIsraelis, meanwhile, struggled to understand how six of their soldiers had been so easily killed, apparently by two attackers who got away.\nWest Bank army commander Brig. Gen. Gershon Yitzhak said the attackers took advantage of an open crossing point for Palestinian workers moving between different parts of the West Bank. He said they suddenly opened fire on soldiers, killing three, and then entered sleeping quarters, where they killed three more soldiers. Another soldier was seriously wounded.\nSince violence erupted in September 2000, 980 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 281 on the Israeli side.