GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip ? Israeli troops stormed a Hamas stronghold on Thursday, setting off the most intense gunbattle in the Gaza Strip in 2 1/2 years of fighting, just a day after mediators presented a Mideast peace plan. Thirteen Palestinians were killed, including two children and three targeted Hamas fugitives.

Also Thursday, a Palestinian opened fire on a guard post outside a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and soldiers killed the attacker, the military said.

Palestinian officials and Israeli opposition leaders accused Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of using the raid to undercut the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, before he has a chance to fulfill a promise to disarm militias.

However, a Sharon adviser said Israel would not halt its antiterror campaign and would not give Abbas, sworn in Wednesday, a grace period.

The Israeli incursion pitted more than 200 Palestinian gunmen with antitank missiles, grenades and homemade explosives against Israeli soldiers who fired machine guns and tank shells. Sixty-five Palestinians were wounded, including 15 critically.

The violence came just a day after international mediators presented a new peace plan, the so-called “road map” to Palestinian statehood within three years. The Palestinians have accepted the plan, while Israel has expressed major reservations.

The road map starts with a Palestinian crackdown on terror groups and an Israeli freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, combined with a gradual Israeli pullout from the autonomous Palestinian zones its troops have reoccupied during 31 months of fighting.

The Gaza City incursion came a day after Hamas carried out a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv pub that killed a waitress and two musicians. However, Israeli military officials did not link the raid to the bombing, saying they were after three top Hamas fugitives in Gaza — brothers Yousef, Mahmoud and Ayman Abu Hein.