Israeli forces pushed into the Gaza Strip's most populous area on Sunday, killing at least 31 Palestinians on the 16th day of a devastating offensive Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said was close to achieving its aims. An Israeli military spokesman said army reservists, held back until now, had been thrown into the battle.
"We have begun to integrate reservist forces into the action in the Gaza Strip," Avi Benayahu said on Israel's Channel 2 TV. "We aren't acting in panic, but cautiously." Thick black smoke rose over the city of Gaza as fighting raged on in the Hamas-ruled territory in defiance of a UN Security Council demand for a cease-fire. Medical workers said about half the Palestinians killed on Sunday were civilians.
"Israel is getting close to achieving the goals it set for itself," Olmert told his cabinet in Jerusalem. "But patience, determination and effort are still needed to realise these goals in a manner that will change the security situation in the south," Olmert said, referring to Israeli towns where life has been disrupted by Hamas rocket salvoes.
On the usually quiet Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, shots were fired from Syria at Israeli army engineers working on the frontier fence, but no one was hurt and it was not immediately clear who was responsible, an Israeli military spokesman said.
Backed by helicopter gunships, Israeli tanks pushed into eastern and southern parts of the city of Gaza, attacking Hamas militants who fired anti-armour missiles and mortar bombs.
At the edge of the city, Mahmoud Abu Hasseera surveyed the rubble of his house, in an area where Israeli tanks and infantry had battled Palestinian fighters hours earlier. "Where should we and our children go to sleep? To the streets?" he asked. "We have no mattresses, blankets, cooking gas, food or water. Everything was destroyed."
RISING DEATH TOLL:
The Palestinian death toll since Israel's offensive began on December 27 stands at 876, many of them civilians, Gaza medical officials said. More than 3,000 Palestinians have been wounded.
Thirteen Israelis - three civilians hit by rocket fire and 10 soldiers - have been killed, Israel says. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his ruling Islamist group would not consider a cease-fire until Israel ended its air, sea and ground assault and lifted its blockade of Gaza. A Hamas delegation held talks in Cairo on an Egyptian truce plan.
Israel, which has rejected as unworkable the UN cease-fire resolution adopted last week, wants a halt to rocket attacks and measures to prevent Hamas from rearming through tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border. An Israeli defence official was to visit Egypt on Monday to press for tougher anti-smuggling measures.
Western and Israeli officials said diplomats were discussing a broad internationally-assisted monitoring system to help Egypt stop weapons smuggling and intercept rocket shipments.
Visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni that Germany was prepared to help Egypt combat smuggling by land and by sea, Israeli officials said. German diplomats said Berlin had offered training, know-how and equipment to the Egyptian forces.
Israel believes at least some of Hamas's rockets arrived in Egypt by ship and were then transported overland across the Sinai peninsula before being smuggled into Gaza through tunnels.
Israeli forces killed 17 civilians, including four members of one family, and 10 gunmen, in the latest fighting, medics said. Air strikes killed three fighters and a Hamas policeman.
"We are continuing to confront a mad reality of boobytrapped tunnels, boobytrapped schools," the Israeli army spokesman said. "In one district of 150 houses, more than 30 were boobytrapped. Hamas boobytraps every house that residents leave."
Hamas fired 17 rockets into Israel, wounding two people in the town of Beersheba, 42 km (26 miles) from Gaza, police said. Along Gaza's border with Egypt, Israeli aircraft pounded suspected tunnels. Witnesses said Israeli warplanes have been flying over Egyptian territory during their bombing runs. An Israeli military spokesman had no immediate comment.
The spokesman said Israel had lodged a complaint with a UN monitoring force about the shooting on the Golan Heights, and had been told by the force that the gunman had been arrested.
Israel captured the plateau in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it in a move not recognised internationally. In Washington, US President-elect Barack Obama said in broadcast remarks he would begin the search for Middle East peace immediately on becoming president and the Gaza conflict underscored his determination to become involved early.
Comments
Comments are closed.