Israeli tanks have killed at least 18 Palestinians, including sleeping women and children, in an attack in Gaza.

Mahmud Assaly, director of Beit Lahiya hospital, said the people were killed when tanks opened fire on several houses early on Wednesday.

Attaf Hamad, a witness, said that tank shells struck and demolished at least four houses in the attack. More than 40 people were reportedly injured.

"It is the saddest scene and images I have ever seen. We saw legs, we saw heads, we saw hands scattered in the street," Hamad told Reuters.

"I saw people coming out of a house covered in blood. I started screaming to wake up the neighbours."

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead four armed Palestinians and a civilian early on Wednesday, Palestinian security sources said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops had opened fire during an operation to arrest wanted Palestinian fighters in the village of Yamoun, near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, asked the UN Security Council to meet to discuss the killings.

In a huge demonstration outside the mortuary at the Kamal Adwan hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader in northern Gaza, told the crowd: "We are going to fight against the so-called Israel. We are going to launch our rockets, our martyrs are going to sacrifice their lives in the depths of our occupied land.

"They will strike in Jaffa, in Haifa, inside Ashdod. The battle will continue. The rifle is not going to be set down. All of us are martyrs in waiting. Revenge is coming."

Israel had pulled its forces out of Gaza last year after a 38-year occupation, however it has repeatedly raided the territory since once of its soldiers was captured there in June.

PHOTO CAPTION

A member of the medical services carries a boy killed during shelling by Israeli tanks at Beit Hanoun town in northern Gaza strip November 8, 2006. (Reuters)