16 Palestinians killed in Khan Yunis raid

Sixteen Palestinians, including five civilians, were killed in clashes with Israel Defense Forces soldiers Monday in the southern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Khan Yunis, Palestinian sources said.

An 11-year-old boy was one of the civilians killed in the raid. Eleven armed men, three of whom were said to be Palestinian policemen, were also killed.

Two IDF soldiers, one of them an officer, were seriously wounded Monday morning when an anti-tank missile was fired at their tank in Khan Yunis.

IDF troops, accompanied by tanks and backed by helicopters, entered Khan Yunis and its refugee camp on Sunday night, in an operation launched in response to repeated mortar shelling of the nearby Gush Katif settlement bloc over the weekend.

Sixty Palestinians were wounded in the operation, including many civilians.

Also Monday, IDF troops arrested the deputy commander of the Hamas military wing in the West Bank city of Tul Karm, Army Radio reported. The militant, Ahmed Awad, sent out several Palestinians to carry out attacks against Israeli targets, according to the report.

Earlier in the day, two Qassam rockets were fired at the Negev town of Sderot, close to the border with Gaza. The two rockets fell in an open area, causing no injuries.

An IAF strike Monday morning targeted Palestinians close to a cemetery in the town, witnesses said. Medics said one person was killed and two were in critical condition, each having lost a limb in the attack.

Palestinian witnesses said Monday that armored IDF bulldozers demolished at least one house in Khan Yunis and knocked down part of a wall around a hospital.

On Sunday, three Palestinians were killed in separate IAF missile strikes in Khan Yunis. An air strike early in the day killed two Islamic Jihad militants, and a missile fired from an unmanned drone struck a Palestinian police post later in the day, killing a policeman.

Over the weekend, Hamas militants fired some 20 mortar shells at Gush Katif - most from Khan Yunis - damaging five houses but causing no casualties. The shelling came in the wake of Israel's assassination Thursday of a senior operative in the Hamas military wing, Adnan al-Ghoul.

	An injured Palestinian policeman being led to the hospital in Khan Yunis on Sunday. (Reuters)