Interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has strongly condemned the barbarous act after an Israeli
tank killed seven Palestinian youths in northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army said it had targeted militants who had crept into a strawberry field and fired mortar bombs into a nearby Jewish settlement in the north of the occupied territory.

Palestinian witnesses and medics said the militants had fled by the time the tank shell crashed and all the dead were youths from two farming families. Fifteen people were wounded, several critically.

Abbas later tried to visit the wounded in a hospital but drove away without getting out of his car because of tank bursts nearby in response to a rocket volley by militants into Israel, which caused no casualties.

On Tuesday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie also condemned the Israeli army's military operation in the Palestinian territories, saying Israel is trying to hinder the Palestinian general elections scheduled for this Sunday.