Israeli forces kill 12 Palestinians in Gaza raid

GAZA, June 27 (Reuters) Israeli forces today killed at least 12 Palestinians, mostly gunmen but also a 12-year-old boy and other civilians, in the deadliest raid in Gaza since Hamas seized the territory, medical workers said.

The operation in Gaza City and the southern town of Khan Younis appeared to signal Israel intended to keep strong military pressure on Hamas along with its efforts to isolate the Islamist militant group financially and politically.

The violence erupted as West Asia mediators prepared to appoint outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair as their new envoy in a bid to revive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking despite Hamas's takeover in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the Israeli incursion was part of a ''conspiracy in which (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas is a participant and which is aimed at pressuring Hamas and the people of Gaza''.

Four of the nine militants killed in the Israeli operation belonged to Hamas, which routed forces from Abbas's secular Fatah faction in the territory two weeks ago.

Local residents in two Gaza battle zones said gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and detonated explosive devices in confrontations with Israeli infantry and armour.

A 12-year-old lay in the street, his arms twisted at odd angles, near a house in a Gaza City neighbourhood where residents and medical workers said a shell fired by an Israeli tank had caused an explosion.

He was pronounced dead in a hospital along with two men, their bodies shredded by shrapnel. Residents said the men were civilians.

A military spokesman in Tel Aviv said a tank shell fired in Gaza City's Shejaia neighbourhood was aimed at a gunman, and he had no information about a house being hit. Residents said tanks in the area later withdrew towards the Israeli frontier.

Two Israeli soldiers were wounded by an anti-tank missile during operations that Israel's deputy defence minister, Ephraim Sneh, described as ''preventive measures'' to foil rocket attacks from Gaza.

Commenting on the raid, Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah: ''We strongly condemn these criminal acts, either in Gaza or the West Bank. We are against violence in all its forms and also we are against launching rockets (at Israel).'' ENVOY At a news conference with Abbas, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the so-called Quartet of West Asia mediators -- the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia -- had agreed on a mandate for a new envoy.

Asked at a news conference if Moscow would support Blair for the position, Lavrov said: ''I understand that the decision is about to be announced''. He did not elaborate.

Ghazi Hamad, an aide to Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister in the Hamas-led government dismissed by Abbas, said the movement did not expect Blair to be even-handed.

''Our experience with Tony Blair as Britain's prime minister has not been encouraging. He has always adopted the American and Israeli positions,'' Hamad said.

Hamas, which came to power in a 2006 election, has rejected Western demands to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals.

Israel pulled troops and settlers out of Gaza in 2005 but has not stopped air strikes and other attacks against militant groups that frequently fire rockets into southern Israel.

REUTERS SYU RN1833