Israel warns of more escalation
2009-01-10 22:02
Gaza City - Israel vowed to escalate its war in Gaza on Saturday after carrying out more deadly air strikes, as troops battled Hamas fighters into a third week despite growing calls for a ceasefire.
As the death rose well above 800, Israeli planes sent a cloud of white leaflets fluttering across the Gaza City skyline warning residents it would soon step up its war on Hamas and other militant groups.
Ground troops clashed with militants while the airforce said it carried out 60 air strikes targeting arms manufacturing sites, weapons depots and smuggling tunnels, the army said.
The Israeli military said it had killed Amir Mansi, a senior Hamas rocket launcher responsible for many of the long-range rockets fired in recent days. Hamas refused to say where he ranked in the movement's armed wing.
In a separate incident, eight members of the same Palestinian family, including a 12-year-old, were killed during the shelling of the northern town of Jabaliya.
"We were at home when the bombing started," one of the attack's survivors Umm Mohammed told AFP inside a nearby hospital.
Offensive began on December 27
"We fled towards another house and the tanks started firing. Several of us were hit."
An Israeli army spokesperson denied the incident took place, and Israel has said from the start of the conflict that it is not targeting civilians.
Israeli forces killed at least 28 people on Saturday including 17 in heavy fighting in the north and around Gaza City, according to Dr Muawiya Hassanein, head of Gaza emergency services.
Since the Israeli offensive began on December 27, at least 828 people have been killed, including 235 children, 93 women, and 12 paramedics, he said.
Another 3 350 people have been wounded, overwhelming Gaza's beleaguered medical facilities.
Hamas and other armed groups meanwhile fired at least 13 rockets into Israel, wounding four people, according to the Israeli army.
Egypt has been spearheading US-backed efforts to end the fighting that has sparked spiralling protests across the Muslim world, with President Hosni Mubarak meeting his Palestinian counterpart Mahmud Abbas on Saturday.
A Hamas delegation, including for the first time senior officials from Gaza as well as members of the Islamists' Damascus-based leadership in exile, was also due to hold talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.
Call for truce rejected
Abbas pressed Hamas to accept the Egyptian plan "without hesitation," warning that "whoever does not accept (the plan) will be responsible for the continuing aggression and for bloodshed."
Mubarak's plan calls for an immediate truce for a specified period, opening Gaza's border crossings, preventing arms smuggling and a call for Palestinians to resume reconciliation talks.
Israeli officials said Egypt has proposed that Western-backed forces loyal to Abbas - which were violently driven out of Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007 - patrol the Gaza-Egypt border to help prevent arms smuggling.
But Hamas's Syria-based politburo said in a joint statement with other armed factions that it would reject "any security arrangements that undermine the resistance" against Israel, including international forces or observers.
Hamas has also rejected a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate truce in a territory, already reeling from an 18-month Israeli blockade enacted when the Islamist movement seized power.
"UN Security Council Resolution 1860 does not meet the demands and interests of the Palestinian people, and harms the resistance," said the joint statement issued in Damascus.
Israel has also ignored the UN resolution and on Friday vowed to press ahead with its offensive.
The flyers which rained down on Gaza warned that the military "will soon intensify its operations against the tunnels, arms depots, and terrorists throughout the Gaza Strip".
"For your security and that of your families, you are asked not to approach terrorists, weapons depots and arms," added the flyers, printed in Arabic.
Humanitarian impact acute
The humanitarian impact of Operation Cast Lead was also becoming more acute with the United Nations warning that families were going hungry as food supplies dry up.
Israel launched its war aiming to end rocket fire against southern towns and the smuggling of weapons into Gaza through tunnels under the border with Egypt.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or in rocket attacks since the operation began, as Palestinian militants have fired more than 600 rockets, some of them penetrating deeper than ever inside Israel.