The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Gaza City

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian baby girl and a senior militant during a brief incursion into Gaza on Tuesday, overshadowing a new peace push by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Palestinian medics said the Israelis shot dead a 20-day-old baby girl during exchanges of fire with gunmen, and that 10 people had been wounded, including at least three gunmen.

A top leader in the radical Islamic Jihad movement, Youssuf Smeiri, was killed following the two-hour incursion into the Hamas-ruled territory, the army and Palestinian sources said.

Rice had earlier met moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who broke off all contacts with Israel on Sunday after a previous incursion killed more than 120 people, including 23 children.

He responded to her call for renewed talks with a demand for a comprehensive ceasefire.

But as the top US diplomat met in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert over dinner, Israeli forces backed by helicopters clashed with Hamas gunmen after several armoured vehicles entered Gaza east of the city of Khan Yunis. The Israeli forces withdrew several hours later after arresting three people, including the son of Smeiri, also known as Abu Muaz.

The Israeli forces had laid siege to Smeiri's house in the village of Al-Karara, several hundred metres (yards) from the border, Palestinian security sources said.

Baby Amira Abu Asr was killed in the same village, sources at the Nasser hospital in the town of Khan Yunis told AFP, and two civilians were wounded.

An Israeli army spokesman said he was "not familiar" with the killing of the baby.

Late on Tuesday, Israeli aircraft fired rockets towards a cell of Islamic Jihad militants, causing no casualties, shortly after they had fired rockets against southern Israel, the group said.

Rice had earlier called for Israel to be "very cognizant of the effects of its operations on innocent people," urging both Israel and the Palestinians to renew peace talks that were dealt a major blow by the deadly Israeli onslaught of the past week. "We look forward to the resumption of negotiations as soon as possible," Rice said after meeting Abbas.

She said President George W. Bush's goal of resolving the decades-old conflict and inking a historic peace deal by the end of his term in January 2009 was still possible.