GAZA CITY, October 21 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Twelve Palestinians were killed and 70 wounded in five Israeli air strikes in Gaza Monday, October 20, as Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon laid the blame for what he termed “continuing violence” at the feet of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Palestinian sources said most of the victims in the raids were civilians, including women and children, although Hamas’ armed wing of Ezzedin al-Qassam lost at least two activists in the raids, said Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The deadliest raid hit late Monday in Nusseirat refugee camp of the central Gaza Strip where seven Palestinians were killed and 40 wounded, 10 of them seriously, according to Palestinian security sources.

Hospital sources said all those killed were civilians, including a nine-year-old child, while four of the wounded were termed clinically dead.

An Apache assault helicopter scored a direct hit on a car with a missile, witnesses said, adding that the target was Ezzedin al-Qassam local chief Imad Akel, who apparently survived while other passengers were wounded.

A second missile struck and killed residents who came to the rescue of the passengers, the witnesses said.

Zein Shahin, a 30-year-old doctor who arrived at the scene by ambulance, was among the dead.

“It was a massacre, they killed us relentlessly,” one of the angry crowd at the blood-covered scene told IslamOnline.net.

Less than an hour later, a raid on a building in the Shujaya district of Gaza City wounded five people, security sources said.

The Israeli army claimed the building was being used as an arms factory. But Palestinians denied.

Three air raids Monday morning - including at least one strike with an F-16 fighter - killed two Qassam activists as well as a civilian, while 25 Palestinians were wounded, Palestinian hospital sources said.

The two fighters were killed when a missile fired by a combat helicopter slammed into their car as they drove through the centre of Gaza City.

During the raids, Israeli forces attacked a building which they said had been used by Hamas to manufacture the Qassam rockets.

Afterwards, Shami stopped short of saying whether he was targeted in the aggression, telling Al-Jazeera over phone that it is meant to cover up for its losses in a Sunday, October 19, night ambush that killed three Israeli soldiers.

"The target of this aggression is not just Islamic Jihad but the entire Palestinian people," said another senior figure of the group.

The latest deaths raised to 3,563 the number of people killed since the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada, including 2,651 Palestinians and 846 Israeli, according to an AFP count.

In revenge, two Qassam rockets - of the type produced by Hamas - crashed into southern Israel late Monday from the Gaza Strip, without causing casualties, Israeli military sources said.

The armed wing said in a statement that it had launched five mortar bombs at the Neve Dekalim settlement in southern Gaza and two makeshift Qassam rockets at southern Israel in retaliation for the five raids.

The group said that the attacks were "the first response" to the Israeli raids on Monday in Gaza which left two of its fighters dead.

Israeli sources said that none of the late night attacks by Hamas had resulted in casualties.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat condemned what he called the "massacre" in Nusseirat and called for protection from the international community for the Palestinians.

"I have called officials in the U.S. administration, the European Union, the United Nations and various countries to ask them to intervene and to protect the Palestinian people," Erakat said.

He urged an "immediate halt to this bloodthirsty and dangerous escalation”.

Erakat said Sharon's speech "constitutes an escalation and shows the determination of Israel to destroy the peace process”.

The fresh violence, which came after three Israeli soldiers were shot dead in the West Bank late Sunday, cast an ever deepening shadow over the battered peace process.

Sharon said in a speech Monday marking the start of a new parliamentary session that the U.0.0S-backed "roadmap" peace plan was the only hope of ending conflict, as he again branded Palestinian leader Arafat the main obstacle to peace.

"Arafat is the one who has scuppered and continues to scupper any progress," he charged. "This man is the biggest obstacle to peace and... and as a result, Israel has taken steps to remove him from the political arena”.

Sharon also called on the Palestinian Authority to "eradicate terror" and said that Israel would accelerate construction of a controversial West Bank separation barrier.

A special UN General Assembly debate on Israel was suspended Monday until late Tuesday, as delegates considered an appeal to the International Court of Justice to declare the barrier illegal.

The United States, meanwhile, called on Israel to avoid "counterproductive" moves against Arafat.

"Our views haven't changed," said deputy US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli.

"Those views are that taking actions against Arafat could prove counterproductive and would not be helpful."

After the deadly raids, Washington again urged Americans in the Gaza Strip to leave, while warning others to postpone travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv had issued a similar warning on Wednesday, after three Americans working as part of the security force at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv were killed in the bombing of a diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip.

"The potential for further terrorist acts remains high, the situation in Israel, occupied Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank remains extremely volatile with continuing terrorist attacks, confrontations and clashes," read the warning.