Thirteen civilians, including nine children, died when an Israeli F-16 fighter-bomber fired a 1,000-pound (450 kilogram) missile into a densely populated area of Gaza City late Monday, that also killed Hamas military leader Salah Shehade, the target of the strike, and his bodyguard. Another 176 people were wounded, Palestinian Health Minister Riad Al-Zaanoun said, 15 of whom were not likely to survive, according to hospital sources.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke out almost immediately after the raid, rapping Israel for not taking steps to avoid killing civilians. "Israel has the legal and moral responsibility to take all measures to avoid the loss of innocent life," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

The European Union, a member of the diplomatic "quartet" aiming to relaunch the Middle East peace process along with the United States, the UN and Russia, was even harsher in its condemnation, calling the attack unjustified and unacceptable.

"The military operation cannot be justified in any circumstance and is a disproportionate attack," said a spokesman for the European Commission, the EU’s administrative arm, in Brussels.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and European Commission President Romano Prodi warned the air raid could hamper tentative moves to end the heightened conflict that erupted between Israel and the Palestinians in September 2000. "This extrajudicial killing operation, which targeted a densely populated area, comes at a time when both Israelis and Palestinians were working very seriously to curb violence and restore cooperative security arrangements," Solana said in a statement.

Denmark, current holder of the rotating EU presidency, said it "strongly condemns any military action directed indiscriminately against a civilian neighborhood, whether Palestinian or Israeli." A French Foreign Ministry spokesman said Paris "firmly condemns the raid" which "in no way contributes to a solution" for peace. Norway called on Israel to "stop the air attacks against Palestinian civilian targets."

The harshest criticism came from Arab nations, with Egypt calling the Israeli attack a "war crime", as the Palestinian Authority said it was planning to file a complaint with the new International Criminal Court. "What happened yesterday in Gaza is a war crime," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said in Cairo. At his headquarters in Cairo, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa called on the UN Security Council and human rights groups to step into the conflict. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat deplored "the silence of the international community" after the Israeli air raid, the WAFA news agency reported. "I ask the whole world how it can remain silent before such crimes and not seek to put an end to them?"

The Palestinian leader was backed by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, which stepped up its calls for a protection force in a statement from its secretariat. "This attack came at a moment when regional and international efforts were on the verge of bringing about a halt to the violence and creating favorable conditions for a resumption of the peace process," it said. (The Independent)