Israeli forces killed a senior activist in Hamas's Izz-el-deen al-Qassam armed wing during a raid into a Hamas stronghold in the central Gaza Strip early on Thursday which sparked a fierce battle with Palestinian gunmen.

The raid was the latest in a series of Israeli moves to clamp down on Palestinian militants as a U.S.-backed peace "road map" appears to be crumbling in a cycle of tit-for-tat violence.

Ambulance medics said Jihad Abu Swerah, 34, a senior activist in Hamas's armed wing was killed when helicopter gunships fired at least three missiles at his house in the camp. His father was wounded in the missile strike.

The helicopter gunships were called in to back up a small contingent of Israeli troops that came under fierce Palestinian grenade and automatic weapons fire when they surrounded Abu Swerah's home early on Thursday during a mission to arrest him.

The fighting was among the heaviest confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip in months.

The helicopters fired three missiles at the house during the gun battle, camp residents said. Ambulances that arrived at the scene after Israeli forces withdrew found the body of Abu Swerah in the rubble of the house.

An Israeli military official said three soldiers were wounded when they came under "massive fire" during "a pinpoint operation" in the Gaza Strip. One of the soldiers was moderately wounded, the other two were lightly hurt, he said.

The Israeli army has said it would step up operations against Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip after 38 people were killed in a series of suicide bombings in Israel carried out by the militant Hamas group in the past month.

Earlier, Israeli forces raided the outskirts of a refugee camp near the Gaza-Egypt border in an operation the army said was aimed at tunnel networks used to smuggle arms and explosives into the southern Gaza Strip from Egypt.

During the raid, an Islamic Jihad militant was seriously wounded in a disputed incident. A Palestinian hospital official said he suffered serious injuries when tanks fired a round, and that six others were lightly hurt in the incident.

A military source said neither the soldiers nor Palestinian gunmen fired "a shot" during the operation, but that an explosion was heard in the camp and Israeli forces believed that a bomb being prepared by militants exploded prematurely.

The source said the militants were likely wounded in that blast.

(China Daily September 18, 2003)