Israeli raids driven by election, say Palestinians

Palestinian leaders and the Arab League said last night that the Israeli government was deliberately escalating the conflict in the Palestinian territories to create an atmosphere in which voters would be more likely to back Ariel Sharonin tomorrow's elections.

The accusation came after the deepest Israeli army incursion into Gaza since the intifada began more than two years ago. Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian cabinet minister, said the Gaza raid was driven by Israeli politics. "We believe he wanted to end the election campaign on this note with more Palestinian blood and destruction," he said.

Visiting the injured in hospital in Gaza City, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, an aide to Yasser Arafat, said Palestinians were paying the "bill of blood" for the Israelis to be re-elected. "This is a fascist logic which will go nowhere," he added. He said the US had given the Israeli operation "the green light while the world is busy with Iraq".

In the incursion, which began shortly after 10pm on Saturday night, the tanks rolled into Gaza from three directions, stopping about 300 metres from Palestine Square. The Israeli army had earlier destroyed bridges linking Gaza City to the town of Beit Hanoun, from where it said short-range rockets had been fired at the Israeli town of Sederot, near Gaza, on Friday.

Wrecked buildings, partially burnt-out market stalls and mangled buses lined the main road through the district of Zaitun towards the centre of Gaza yesterday.

Khalil Abu Amer, the deputy director of Shefa hospital's intensive care unit, said that besides the 12 dead in the Gaza City incursion – who he said were males over the age of 15 – 35 wounded were still receiving treatment, five of them in intensive care. The critically ill included Munis Breija, a journalist on a Hamas newspaper who was wounded in the face and abdomen. Dr Abu Amer said one of the dead men had his face blown away by a shell.

Several people confirmed the dead included armed men who were resisting the incursion. Mohammed, 31, a cousin of one of the dead, said he had been with three armed men, Alaa Khalifi, 27, Ayad Alkewi, 22, and Mustafa Ruhmi, 30, close to the Shama mosque, when they were killed by a rocket attack from a helicopter. "Every time we tried to help the wounded, they shot at us," he said. The three had been proclaimed martyrs on a banner outside a mourning tent close to the scene of their deaths.

At the hospital, being treated for a bullet wound in his foot, Azzam, 23, said: "For every Palestinian bullet there were two Israeli tank shells." But he added: "We taught them a lesson. We forced them to leave."

Another man, Ayesh, said he had gone to the Hamas office to collect a weapon when the incursion began. He said he was not a Hamas member. Amid the rubble of his car engine repair shop, Mohammed Bartiti denied any involvement in weapons manufacture. He said it was the second time he had been targetedafter an earlier attack on machinery in the workshop.