By the thousands they descended on Beit Hanoun, answering Hamas’s overnight radio pleas to rescue besieged Palestinian gunmen from the mosque.

Veiled and carrying mobile phones and handbags they charged past Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers through the deserted streets of a border town in the midst of the most intensive Israeli military operation in northern Gaza in recent months.

The plan was to smuggle their men out in women’s clothes, some of the marchers wearing double sets under their voluminous black cloaks and veils.

A firefight erupted when gunmen who had been holed up in the mosque for more than a day ran free to join the crowd, leaving at least one of the women dead and dozens more injured by Israeli troops.

Israel insists that it hit eight gunmen hiding in the crowd and criticised the militants for using the women as cover to fire on them. But many accused Israeli tanks and snipers of shooting into unarmed crowds of women, several of whom were wounded before they got anywhere near Beit Hanoun’s Nasr Mosque.

Whatever the truth of conflicting reports, the standoff renewed criticism of guerrillas operating from within civilian areas during the war in Lebanon this summer and the scale and effectiveness of the Israeli response.

As she emerged with other veiled women from the town centre with machine gun fire still rattling behind here Umm Bara, 25, said she was among thousands who answered the overnight call on Hamas’s Al Aqsa radio to free their "brothers and cousins" after a two-day standoff.

"We reached the mosque. There was a tank between us and the mosque. A group ahead of us managed to get the besieged out," she said, dressed in a black niqab and carrying a Nokia and handbag.

Then, she said, a tank opened fire on her group. "They shot six women in front of me, one of them was pregnant. Two women were killed."

Other groups of women descended on the town from other directions as part of a concerted plan – Hamas later confirmed – to create a distraction.

An Israel Defence Forces spokeswoman condemned militants for the use - "with no shame" – of human shields "knowing the IDF would not shoot at women and children."

She said the gunmen ignored repeated calls to surrender from Israeli forces surrounding the mosque, which used means "specifically designed" to minimise damage to the building. But as the tanks and bulldozers moved in and the building collapsed during the attack, the situation deteriorated into a "heavy exchange of fire."

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