AL-KHADER, West Bank, April 12 (AFP) - A seven-year-old Palestinian girl was shot in the face by an Israeli rubber bullet while at school in the West Bank village of al-Khader when clashes broke out nearby, medical sources said.

Children started throwing stones at Israeli soldiers posted next to a girls' school in the village after the Israeli army fired tear gas canisters into the school "for no reason," a school employee told AFP.

Two Palestinian teenage boys were also shot by rubber bullets outside the school during the demonstration, medical sources said.

Two other girls and three teachers were treated for tear gas inhalation, one of them in hospital, and the school was closed off after the incident, the sources said.

The incident occurred after an Israeli soldier was moderately wounded when Palestinians opened fire on a road passing between the nearby village of Beit Jala and the Jewish settlement of Gilo in east Jerusalem, where exchanges of fire have been common during the ongoing Palestinian uprising.

The road, which links east Jerusalem to Israeli settlements in the south of the West Bank, was closed to traffic.

A heavy exchange of fire erupted between Israeli troops and Palestinian forces after security officials turned away around 30 soldiers trying to enter the fully Palestinian-controlled area to search houses in Beit Jala, witnesses said.

Tanks fired at least three shells on to the village, they added.

[Los Angeles Times - Thursday, April 12, 2001] Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip -- Israel plunged deep into Palestinian-controlled territory early yesterday for the first time in six months of strife, charging into this refugee camp with tanks and bulldozers in a raid that exploded into some of the most intense fighting since the Palestinian uprising began.

Responding to a barrage of Palestinian mortar fire targeting Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and communities within Israel, army forces demolished more than two dozen homes and waged a ferocious four-hour ground battle with armed Palestinians before finally pulling out at dawn.

Israeli officials called the growing spate of mortar attacks "unacceptable. " Palestinian leaders branded the Khan Yunis attack an outrage and warned that they would escalate the conflict.

With violence seemingly spinning out of control, senior Israeli and Palestinian security officials nevertheless met late yesterday in another U.S.- hosted attempt to ease tensions.

Morning broke in Khan Yunis to reveal a disaster zone, with crowds of Palestinians picking through the debris of their homes. Women stacked clothes and pots and pans on their heads, weeping children looked for toys, and men angrily spoke of revenge as they loaded mattresses and blankets onto the backs of donkeys.

Two Palestinians were killed and almost 30 were hurt, including three journalists. The army said there were no Israeli casualties.

"We put all our money in this place. We had our dreams here. We had memories in every corner of this house," a dejected Fatma Abulouz said, sitting on the beige stones that were all that remained of the home that her family had lived in since fleeing the Negev town of Beersheba during Israel's 1948 war of independence.

"And now everything is gone. We do not know where to sleep or where to go."

The incursion began in the wee hours of the morning, under cover of darkness. Firing shells and machine guns from tanks, Israeli forces advanced about 200 yards into Khan Yunis and began demolishing two blocks of buildings, witnesses said. Bulldozers rumbled and roared, toppling concrete walls and crumpling metal roofs.

As the Israelis pushed deeper into Palestinian territory, a wail sounded from the Khan Yunis mosque, calling on all residents with guns to take to the streets to repel the "invaders." Hundreds of gunmen scrambled to duty, and the two sides traded fire for hours.

Israeli authorities said the raid was "purely defensive" and attacked positions that were being used by Palestinian fighters to shell Israeli targets.

Khan Yunis, home to about 60,000 refugees and an additional 100,000 residents, abuts the Gush Katif cluster of Jewish settlements, which have been targeted by mortar attacks in the last several days. Each mortar firing has drawn swift Israeli retaliation with missiles and rockets, increasing steadily until yesterday.

"I ordered the (Israel Defense Forces) to enter into the areas from which mortars have been fired at us nightly in all directions," Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said.

Four more mortars were fired toward other Jewish settlements last night.

Ben-Eliezer insisted that Israel has no interest in reoccupying Palestinian territory, noting that his troops had withdrawn.

Still, yesterday's raid, and the use of mortars by the Palestinians, mark a sharp escalation in a cycle of bloodshed that has already killed more than 450 people. Senior army officers have been urging Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government to ignore the borders between Palestinian-ruled territory and Israel if necessary to combat Palestinian militants.

Uzi Landau, the hawkish internal security minister, called yesterday for an escalation of such attacks.

"I want to see this operation as the beginning, the very, very tip of the beginning of this struggle," Landau said. "I will of course demand that the government pursue a policy of hitting at them all the time, everywhere, and not just where the mortars are."