Israeli occupation troops raiding a Gaza refugee camp arrested a Hamas founder Monday, targeting the political leadership of the Islamic resistance group for the first time in 29 months of fighting. Eight Palestinians, among them a pregnant woman, were killed in clashes in the camp. Occupation troops also blew up four homes in the Bureij camp, including that of Hamas co-founder Mohammed Taha, 65, who was wounded in clashes with occupation soldiers, the occupation army said. Several adjacent houses and a mosque were damaged by the blasts.

Taha's five sons - all senior Hamas activists - were also arrested. One son, Ayman, who was also wounded Monday, is the assistant of the top Hamas bombmaker and No. 1 on Israel's wanted list, Mohammed Deif, the occupation army said.

The arrests signaled a turning point in Israel's dealings with Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in shootings and bombings. Since the outbreak of fighting in September 2000, Israel has killed scores of Hamas activists and rounded up hundreds of activists, but left the political leadership in Gaza alone.

"This is a continuation of the escalated aggression against our people and our holy places," Arafat told The Associated Press. His Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat called for U.S. intervention to stop Israel's actions, saying that "silence to these crimes is an encouragement for their reoccurrence."

Mohammed Taha founded Hamas in 1987, along with the group's leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Since then, the group has emerged as Yasser Arafat's biggest political rival. Mohammed and Ayman Taha were among about 400 suspected Islamic activists Israel deported to Lebanon for a year in 1992.

Since the outbreak of fighting in September 2000, Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in bombings and shootings.

In response, Israel has rounded up many Hamas activists, including leaders of the military wing. It has not targeted the political leadership, however, instead hitting installations of Palestinian security forces.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday the occupation army would step up strikes against Hamas. "We want to arrive at a situation where the terror organizations invest more and more (effort) defending themselves," he said.

Monday's incursion began at about 2 a.m. when jeeps and tanks backed by helicopters rolled into Bureij in central Gaza.

Fierce fighting erupted, and hospital doctors said eight Palestinians were killed. Five were resistance men and three were civilians - two boys, ages 14 and 16, and a 33-year-old woman in her ninth month of pregnancy.

The woman was killed when her house collapsed on her during the demolition of a nearby building, doctors and her family said. Six other family members were injured, including the woman's husband and two of her sons.

Israeli occupation soldiers prevented ambulances from evacuating the wounded from Bureij for several hours.

Assaf Liberati, an occupation army spokesman, said the first priority was to protect occupation soldiers, and that there was concern that some of the ambulances were booby-trapped.

The occupation army said it demolished four houses of activists, including the two-story Taha family home and the home of a resistance bomber.

Hand grenades were thrown from the Taha house at occupation soldiers who returned fire, wounding Mohammed and Ayman Taha before arresting them, the occupation army said. In blowing up the house, occupation troops damaged the outer wall of an adjacent mosque where Mohammed Taha was a preacher.

The occupation army confirmed that occupation soldiers entered the mosque, looking for weapons. An Associated Press reporter touring the mosque saw windows smashed and bullet holes in the facade, apparently from Israeli helicopter fire; the mosque is in an alley too narrow for ground fighting. The occupation army denied the damage was deliberate.

The demolition of the four homes severely damaged another 11 homes, rendering them uninhabitable and leaving about 150 people homeless, said the mayor of Bureij, Kamal Baghdadi.

An Israeli occupation army spokeswoman, Maj. Sharon Feingold, said Taha "is one of the most senior Hamas activists and terrorists, and I am happy to say he is in our hands." She said the raid "is a clear message to the terrorists that ... there's a price to be paid."

Hamas said Taha's arrest was a serious blow, but that the group would continue attacking Israelis. "Israel will pay a high price for its crimes," said a spokesman, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

The occupation army's offensive against Hamas in Gaza began two weeks ago, after Hamas blew up an Israeli tank, killing its four-men crew. Since then, 44 Palestinians, including Hamas resistance men and at least eight civilians, have been killed in 14 Israeli raids in towns and camps.

In Nablus, Israeli occupation troops renewed their operation in the West Bank city's Casbah - or Old City - early Monday, blocking the entrances to the area and taking over homes and buildings to use as lookouts, residents said. Occupation soldiers conducted house-to-house searches for activists, but no fighting erupted.

In a village near the West Bank town of Jenin, the occupation army said it demolished the home of a Hamas activist. The occupation army said the activist, Fathi Hatzib, drove a resistance bomber to the Park Hotel in Netanya, where he blew himself up on the eve of Passover last year, killing 29 people, the deadliest attack in more than two years of fighting.


PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinians search through the rubble of a house destroyed next to a mosque in the Bureij refugee camp, Monday, March 3, 2003 after Israeli tanks moved into the Nusseirat and Bureij refugee camps in the central part of the Gaza Strip early Monday killing eight people.(AP Photo/Karel Prinslo