Palestinian pray and have a last look at some of the 12 men killed by Israel before their funeral in the big mosque

Additional reporting by Adel Zoghrab, IOL Palestine correspondent

RAFAH, GAZA, January 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A six-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli tank fire Sunday, January 26, in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah while he was playing with his brother near the border with Egypt, as Gazans buried the 13 Palestinian killed by Israel a day before.

Ali Talab Ghreiz, six, was killed and his five-year-old brother injured when the tank opened fire with a heavy machine-gun, Palestinian hospital sources said.

“The kids were playing in the yard when an Israeli tanks approached them and intentionally fired in their direction, Yasser Alhour, an eye witness whose house oversees the area the children were playing in told IslamOnline.

“This is not the first time the Israeli occupation army fires at children,” said the boy’s grandchild, Ali Ghreiz, adding that his eight-year- old granddaughter Tesnim, cousin of the killed child, was seriously injured last month after the Israeli army shot her in the stomach.

Rafah is frequently raided by the Israeli army especially during nights resulting in the death of many children, the last of whom was Alaa Al Sedoudi.

“This is a horrifying crime,” said Dr. Ali Mussa, head of the Abou Youssef Al Naggar hospital, adding that (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) “Sharon’s terrorist government continue to deliberately kill Palestinian children in Rafah.”

He added that Alaa, the younger brother who was injured, is in a stable condition describing his state as moderate.

540 Palestinian child killed

Palestinian children below the age of 18 who were killed during the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation reached 540, according to the information center of the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The boy's death brought to 2,898 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising against Israeli occupation, in September 2000, including 2,155 Palestinians and 687 Israelis.

Earlier Sunday, Israeli occupation troops pushed deep into Al-Zayton district south of Gaza City, leaving 13 Palestinians dead and over 64 other wounded some seriously.

Up to 60 Israeli tanks and armored vehicles thrust into the district backed by U.S.-made Apache helicopters, which shelled the houses of Palestinian citizens, eyewitnesses told IslamOnline, adding that the Israeli troops took used the houses as military barricades and used dozens of citizens as human shields.

Gaza City in shock

The brother of Khaled Shalof, 17, one of the 12 Palestinians killed by Israel

Meanwhile, Gazans buried their dead among feelings of anger and shock.

shocked and disbelieving, dozens of shop-keepers and workshop owners sifted Sunday through the rubble of their businesses after the Israeli army made its deepest incursion into Gaza City, for the first time penetrating the heart of the city since the start of the current uprising, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

In addition to 12 people killed and 64 wounded, more than 50 metal workshops, 80 small stores and three houses were smashed in the blistering overnight attack that exploded in the city's largest residential district of Zeitoun.

Still shaken from eight hours of pitched fighting and the detonations of helicopter rockets and tanks shells in the night, Fuad Simna looked at the ruins of his metal factory, before Sunday's raid one of the largest in Gaza.

"I can't believe my eyes. They destroyed my workshop, everything is destroyed," he said.

The Israeli army claimed his lathes and other machinery turned out homemade Katyusha-style rockets, more than 10 of which have been fired by militants across the Gaza border into southern Israel in recent days.

"How are we going to build mortars and rockets when we are working on our heavy iron industry?" he asking, staring at the wreckage of a building where 50 of his workers used to build pre-fab houses, caravans and girders.

"This kind of destruction of factories prevents hundreds of Palestinians from working. The 50 here will be added to the list of unemployed, when there are already more than 70 percent of people jobless in the Gaza Strip because of the Israeli closure," Simna said.

Nearby Bashir Aqel stood at his smashed doors, saying not a single part of his four-storey house was left unscathed by the battle. The facades of most of his neighbors' buildings were also scarred by bullets or shrapnel.

Along Saladin Street, the main thoroughfare leading into the city center, hardly a metal workshop was left intact after Sunday's fighting and the raids which pushed deep into the heart of the sprawling coastal metropolis.

Not far from the industrial area of workshop and mechanics' garages, Mohammed Dahdur, 60, stared at the remains of his dynamited house and tried to understand what happened to him.

Muttering in shock, he blamed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, accusing him of using the show of strength to bolster his image ahead of Tuesday's general elections in the Jewish state.

"Sharon wanted success in the election to be written in our blood our children's blood, with the stone from our houses," he said.

Workshop owner Mussa Abu Shaaban, who used to employ dozens of workers, agreed.

"This is a cowardly operation, Sharon is trying to justify his failure to provide peace and security for the Israelis. We are not giving up and not leaving our land whatever the Israeli war going to be," he said.

Beside him children picked through the rubble trying to salvage what they could.

One 15-year-old boy, Wassim, said the destruction made him more determined to study hard and become a lawyer, to "defend my people who are oppressed by the Israeli occupation."

But a member of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction promised a more immediate response.

"We will gather our pain today, but tomorrow we'll strike back," he said.