2 killed, hundreds left homeless as Israelis attack refugee camp

JERUSALEM - Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs met yesterday in a U.S.-sponsored effort to reduce violence, Palestinian officials said, hours after Israeli tanks rumbled into a refugee camp and reduced a neighborhood to rubble - the first such foray into Palestinian territory during seven months of violence.

The U.S. administration is reluctant to help broker peace talks before violence ends, but U.S. mediators stepped in after the latest flare-up to arrange the meeting between Israeli and Palestinian security commanders, with participation of U.S. diplomats and CIA officials.

The Palestinians initially said they hesitated to attend the talks, following the Israeli assault with tanks and bulldozers on a neighborhood in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Israel said the pre-dawn raid was in response to mortar fire.

Two Palestinians were killed, more than two dozen wounded and 30 homes razed or heavily damaged in the raid, which left hundreds of people homeless, according to Palestinian officials. The Israeli troops came under heavy return fire from dozens of Palestinian policemen and gunmen, witnesses said.

At daybreak, two camp residents with hoes tore into the rubble, retrieving blankets and pillows, while a woman collected pots and pans, carrying them piled high on a metal tray on her head. A 9-year-old boy, Osama Hassouneh, picked up the pieces of a red fire engine that he said was a gift from his father and his only toy.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that despite the nighttime incursion, he had no plans to reoccupy areas of the Gaza Strip from which Israeli troops withdrew in 1994 as part of interim peace agreements.

Ben-Eliezer said troops attacked an area of Khan Yunis from which mortar shells were fired at Jewish settlements.

"These are points we don't want the Palestinians to return to," Ben-Eliezer told Israel radio. "This is a clear act of defense."

Israel says Palestinians have fired more than 50 mortar shells at Gaza settlements in recent days.