Beit Hanoun, Gaza - Israeli Shells Hits Neighborhood Killing Civilians

Beit Hanoun, Gaza - Israeli artillery shells killed 18 civilians in Beit Hanoun, a town in the northern Gaza Strip that has been a launching ground for Palestinian militants' rocket attacks on Israel. Thirteen members of one extended family were killed and the dead included seven children and four women, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the killings as a "horrible and ugly massacre" and said that, while he condemned rocket attacks on Israel, they did not justify such harsh military action.
A senior official of the governing Hamas group urged Palestinians to attack inside Israel in response, and the Islamic Jihad group vowed to carry out suicide bombings.
Hamas's armed wing, decrying Washington's "political and financial support" for Israel, appeared to call on Palestinians to attack U.S. targets, urging them in a statement "to teach the American enemy harsh lessons".

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz ordered an investigation and a halt to shelling in Gaza until its completion, the prime minister's office said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said he and Peretz "voiced sorrow over the deaths of Palestinian civilians ... and offered emergency humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority and medical care for the wounded".

A military spokeswoman said Israeli forces had fired shells at north Gaza in response to rockets being launched at Israel.
But an artillery battery had missed its target, a rocket-firing site about a kilometre (half a mile) from the town.