Israel Attack Kills 10 at Gaza Protest

In the chaos that ensued, victims were dragged back toward the intersection and piled into ambulances and cars. The vehicles raced to Najar Hospital, which for two days has functioned as a combination combat-zone field hospital and mortuary.

The Israeli military reported that seven people were killed, but hospital officials reported 10 fatalities, five of them children or teenagers.

The dead were placed in the hospital's overcrowded morgue, while most of the wounded were rushed to other medical facilities. Thirteen were taken directly to the European Gaza Hospital in nearby Khan Younis, most of them age 15 or younger, according to officials there.

The youngest was Ibrahim Awedin, 8, who had been hit in the left eye and was sobbing quietly. His 11-year-old brother, Nouh, lay in the next bed, with a shrapnel wound in his left leg. Attah Breaqa, 10, who was hit in both legs, lay in an adjacent ward, alongside Yousef Fadel, 15, whose stomach had been gouged by shrapnel.

The army's version of events, which officials stressed was based on a preliminary investigation, differed markedly from that of the witnesses. Its statement said a helicopter fired a single missile as a warning shot into an open area. Soldiers then set off warning flares, and when the crowd kept coming, fired machine guns and four tank shells at an abandoned building. "It is possible," the statement said, that the casualties "were a result of the tank fire on the abandoned structure."

Dallal, the army spokesman, said soldiers had not anticipated facing such a large crowd of demonstrators and were not armed with nonlethal riot-control weapons such as tear gas and rubber bullets. "It's not typical of the type of combat activity we usually see," he said.

Dallal said soldiers had spotted armed men in the crowd. He and other Israeli spokesmen also raised the possibility that one of the tank shells had inadvertently set off an explosive charge planted by Palestinians along the road, which he said was the scene of frequent exchanges of fire.

Yaalon, the chief of staff, defended the army, telling Israeli reporters at a briefing that no soldier had received orders to fire into the crowd. He said the incursion in Tel Sultan, known as Operation Rainbow, would continue. But senior army sources told Israeli television that the incident had been a tragic mistake that could force the army to reassess the mission.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, a former chief of staff, said Palestinian terrorists had often used civilians for cover. "I'm deeply sorry about today's incident," he told reporters, "but no other army could conduct a 3 1/2-year campaign against terror and have fewer casualties."

But Naomi Chazan, a member of parliament from the opposition Meretz party, was one of many politicians who predicted that the incident would give fresh impetus to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally pull out of Gaza.

"My feeling is it will be very difficult for the government to justify inaction," she said. "This is a confirmation of the fact that the occupation is a prescription for tragedy. It cannot go on."

Correspondent Robin Shulman and researcher Samuel Sockol in Jerusalem contributed to this report.