Palestinians: Israelis kill 19 in Gaza

Story Highlights

• NEW: Killings spark outrage among moderate, radical Palestinian leaders
• Palestinian sources say Israeli tank shells killed 19 Palestinian civilians
• United Nations, European Union, Britain condemn Israeli action
• Israeli PM Olmert expresses "regret," orders investigation

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GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Hamas' exiled political leader has vowed to retaliate after Israeli troops killed 19 Palestinian civilians, many of them women and children, during a military operation in northern Gaza, according to Palestinian medical sources.

"I call upon all resistance factions to activate their resistance programs," Khaled Mashaal said at a news conference in Syria, according to a translation from The Associated Press.

"The cowardly act of Zionists (Israelis) requires a legitimate Palestinian action. "We have big trust in our military wings, which will reply on this aggression and resist occupation and retaliate for those victims."

The bloodshed occurred early Wednesday with Israeli tanks poised just outside the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. The tanks fired 10 artillery rounds into the town's center and killed 19 people, the medical sources said.

Among the dead was a 13-member family which included seven children, the sources said. The other six killed were also civilians, they said.

Hamas' militant wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigade, issued a statement blaming the United States for the killings, and called on all Muslim nations "to teach the American enemy a harsh lesson."

"America provides the political material and logistical cover for the crimes of the Zionist occupation (Israel) and it is responsible, before the occupation (Israel), for the massacre of Beit Hanoun," the statement said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of the moderate Fatah party, called Wednesday's action "villainous massacres, savage massacres which Israel commits against the Palestinian people," according to an AP translation.

"Our people can't be any more patient, we have to raise our voice in front of the world," Abbas said, calling on the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States to condemn the actions.

Israel criticized

Officials from the U.N., Britain and the EU quickly criticized Israel's action.

U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Alvaro de Soto urged the "Palestinian side" to stop attacking Israelis.

In his statement, de Soto said he was "deeply shocked and appalled" by the Israeli military action earlier in the day that killed "a score of civilians including many women and children."

The statement comes a week after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed his "deep concern" regarding the rising death toll caused by military operations in northern Gaza.

EU's external relations chief Benita Ferrero-Waldner described the attack on Wednesday morning as a "profoundly shocking event."

EU Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana offered his condolences to the families of the Palestinian civilians killed and to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"It is high time to break the cycle of violence that I condemn in the strongest terms," Solana said in a written statement.

He called on the resumption of dialogue between the ruling Hamas party and Abbas' moderate Fatah party.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she was "gravely disturbed" by the reported deaths, and urged Israel to "respect its obligation to avoid harming civilians."

"It is hard to see what this action was meant to achieve and how it can be justified," she added in her statement.

She also said rocket attacks by Palestinian militants "are also unacceptable" and called on both sides to abide by international humanitarian law "and to do their utmost to avoid harming civilians, especially children."

Talks on hold

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz later in the day expressed their regret over the civilian deaths, a government spokesman said.

Olmert ordered an "urgent investigation" into the matter and halted artillery fire in Gaza until the investigation was complete, the spokesman added.

IDF confirmed it had "fired preventative artillery" at rocket launch sites in Beit Hanoun to "disrupt and thwart the launching of Qassam rockets." More than 10 Qassam rockets were launched from the area into Israel in the past day, according to the IDF.

Two of those rockets landed in the Israeli town of Sderot, wounding one civilian.

The IDF said initial reports indicated the artillery fire was fired "at a location distant from the one reportedly hit," but added that the military was investigating the incident.

Israel also said an anti-tank missile was fired at an Israeli force east of Jabalya refugee camp, just south of Beit Hanoun.

The Israeli offensive in northern Gaza resumed mere hours after the Israel Defense Forces announced its withdrawal from Beit Hanoun Tuesday, ending a week-long offensive aimed at rooting out militants who have been firing rockets into southern Israel.

More than 50 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed in the operation, according to AP.

It is the largest military operation since Israeli troops stormed into Gaza following the June 25 abduction of Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants in Gaza. Negotiations to secure his release had been ongoing before Wednesday's killings.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar recently said Shalit's life could be in danger if Israel continued its operation in Gaza.

Talks between Hamas and Fatah regarding a Palestinian Authority unity government were put on hold in the wake of the Beit Hanoun killings, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said.

Haniyeh called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to address "continuous aggression" against the Palestinian people.

CNN's Ben Wedeman contributed to this report.

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