<B>ARMORED Israeli forces raided two Gaza refugee camps and killed 14 Palestinians during gunbattles yesterday after militants staged an audacious attack on Israeli soldiers at Gaza?s border.

Palestinian medics said half of the dead were civilians, including three boys, and the rest militants, some from Hamas, which has killed scores of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks in a Palestinian revolt that erupted in 2000.

Dozens of armored vehicles joined the sweeps for militants in the Nusseirat and al-Bureij camps in the central Gaza Strip. Israeli helicopters, tanks and troops battled Palestinian gunmen in the narrow camp streets, witnesses said.

Medics asserted that the dead civilians included boys of 14, 12 and eight, and that at least 72 Palestinians were wounded, many of them teenagers who were throwing stones at armored vehicles.

Witnesses saw Israeli forces withdraw from the camps at mid-morning, around five hours after sweeping in under cover of darkness to hunt down wanted militants.

?It?s a big massacre today against our people. We call on the whole world to condemn it?, said Abdallah Abu Samhadama, Palestinian governor of central Gaza.

Israeli military sources said the raid was a ?pinpoint operation? against ?terror groups? which had been escalating gun, mortar and rocket attacks on Jewish settlements in Gaza and areas on either side of the border with Israel for months.

Israeli commentators have predicted the army will intensify operations against militant groups in Gaza before Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sets in motion a plan to remove Jewish settlements from occupied territory, probably starting late this year.

Militants, in turn, are seen as keen to bloody the Israelis as much as possible before an evacuation of settlers from Gaza to portray it as a victory in their fight against Israel.

Elaborate border attack

Six Palestinians were killed on Saturday, during an abortive assault by militants in fake Israeli army jeeps at the Erez crossing. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said they carried out a joint strike and pledged more attacks.

It followed an Israeli missile strike, on Wednesday, that killed three Hamas militants in Gaza.

Sharon wants to scrap almost all of 20 exposed Gaza enclaves with around 7 500 settlers, alongside 1.3 million Palestinians, and a few West Bank settlements if he judges a US-backed peace plan, now stalled by persistent violence, to be irretrievable.

Palestinian Negotiations Minister, Saeb Erekat, denounced yesterday?s raids. ?At a time when they?re speaking of withdrawing from Gaza, they?re destroying Gaza. These raids reflect Israeli policy to abort efforts to put the peace process back on track.?

Israel blames the impasse on the Palestinian Authority?s failure to rein in militants hostile to peacemaking. Militants have ignored Palestinian Authority calls for a cease-fire with Israel.

Washington, whose approval Sharon seeks for his plan, fears a unilateral Israeli pullout in Gaza could sow chaos given the growth of Islamist factions into a parallel authority there.

Shahdi al-Kashif