Palestinians fight Israeli forces in Gaza Strip

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip – Palestinian militants armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades battled Israeli helicopters and tanks Thursday in the bloodiest day since Israel invaded Gaza over a soldier’s capture. At least 21 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier died.

Israeli troops retook three empty Jewish settlements nearly a year after abandoning them, seeking to carve out a temporary buffer zone in the northern Gaza Strip to prevent militants from firing more rockets into Israel.

After touring Gaza’s main hospital, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the Islamic militant group Hamas called for international intervention to stop the Israeli offensive, which he called a “crime against humanity.”

Haniyeh said the Israeli push was “a desperate effort to undermine the Palestinian government under the pretext of a search for the missing soldier.”

Throughout the day, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at militants while Israeli tanks took up positions among tightly packed Palestinian homes. Apache helicopters hovered overhead, firing flares and machine guns to support ground troops fighting masked Palestinian gunmen.

Interior Minister Said Siyyam issued the Hamas-led Palestinian administration’s first call to arms since Israel invaded last week, urging Gaza security forces to fulfill their “religious and moral duty to stand up to this aggression and cowardly Zionist invasion.”

Siyyam doesn’t carry much weight with Palestinian security forces, however, because most are loyal to the rival Fatah party led by the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.