It was the most intense gunbattle in Gaza in 31 months of fighting. Separately, two Palestinians were killed in an exchange of fire with soldiers in the West Bank.
The fighting came as Israeli and Palestinian leaders voiced conflicting interpretations of the long-awaited "road map" peace plan, the latest attempt by international mediators to end the violence.
Diplomats representing the so-called Quartet of Mideast mediators — the United States, European Union (news - web sites), United Nations (news - web sites) and Russia — presented the peace plan to Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Wednesday after Mahmoud Abbas took office as the first Palestinian prime minister.
The target of the raid was the home of Yousef Abu Hein, a top Hamas fugitive, in the Shijaiyah neighborhood in Gaza City. The Israeli military said that troops came under heavy fire and eight soldiers were wounded.
Intense fighting continued into the afternoon. Palestinians were armed with assault rifles and anti-tank missiles, and some rigged wiring to large canisters that appeared to hold explosives.
Dr. Fadel Abu Hein, a prominent child psychologist and a brother of the wanted man, said his four-story apartment building came under intense fire.
"We are sitting in full darkness. Children are screaming. We are trying to calm them down, but bullets are coming from all directions," he said.
After daybreak, hundreds of bystanders thronged the area of battle. An AP reporter saw two boys, ages 12 and 14, hit by Israeli fire as they tried to run away from a burst of shooting. The 14-year-old was struck by a bullet in the neck, and doctors later said he was paralyzed from the neck down.
Among those killed were four gunmen, two adult civilians, including a mentally handicapped man, and two boys, ages two and 13, doctors said. Forty Palestinians were wounded, including 12 who were in critical condition.
Two-year-old Amer Ayad was hit by a bullet to the head while he was near a window in his home, said his father Ahmed, a blacksmith. "Is this the new peace President Bush (news - web sites) promised?" Ayad said. "They wrote the answer using the blood of my son."
The incursion came a day after Hamas and another Palestinian group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv pub. The blast killed three bystanders and wounded 55 others. It was not clear whether the Israeli incursion was in response to the bombing.
The fighting underscored the difficulties in implementing the road map. Yet, there is some hope that the plan will succeed in ending the fighting where others have failed.
It is supported by a rare global consensus that neither of the warring sides wants to rebuff. Also, it comes at a time when U.S. clout in the Middle East is at a high point in the wake of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s ouster in Iraq (news - web sites).
"For the first time in a very long time, Israel and the international community have a partner to go back to the table with," U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told The Associated Press after meeting Abbas. "We have, hopefully, a peace process going."
The two sides started the process at odds. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s office issued a statement saying he had received the document "for the purpose of formulating comments on the wording." Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, in contrast, called for "implementing the road map immediately."
Palestinian leaders accused Israel of trying to sabotage the new peace plan. The Gaza raid was meant to "create more provocation, to push for more Palestinian reaction to the Israeli aggression," Mohammed Dahlan, a senior security official, said Thursday, after the first Cabinet meeting chaired by Abbas.
Acting U.S. consul-general Jeff Feltman said "the road map is a guideline, it's not a sacred text or treaty." Larsen also said implementation would be negotiated, and a diplomatic source said the United States might dispatch an envoy for the task.
The three-year outline starts with a Palestinian crackdown on terror groups and an Israeli freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, combined with a "progressive" Israeli pullout from the autonomous Palestinian zones its troops have reoccupied during the current round of fighting.
Both governments say they want to end violence that has killed 2,287 people on the Palestinian side and 763 people on the Israeli side since September 2000. But past plans have failed.
Israel's most important objection is to the implication that it must carry out its part at the same time as the expected Palestinian crackdown on militants, instead of making an end to all violence as a condition for Israeli steps.
In a speech Tuesday, Abbas pledged to collect illegally held weapons, and condemned terrorism "in all its forms."
But it's a monumental task for his battered Palestinian Authority (news - web sites). And the militants' determination to fight on was underscored by Wednesday's suicide bombing hours before Abbas was sworn in.
The Tel Aviv attack was claimed jointly by Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked to his own Fatah (news - web sites) movement but splintered into rogue gangs. A group spokesman said the bombing was a message that "nobody can disarm the resistance movements without a political solution."
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