Gaza residents: Israeli troops move into suburbs - Death Toll 900 and Climbing

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Gaza residents: Israeli troops move into suburbs


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli troops are on the move. Gaza residents say the soldiers are advancing into the city's bomb ravaged suburbs for the first time.

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An Israeli army mortar squad fires a round towards a target in the Gaza Strip, from the Israel side of … photo

Sounds of the battle could be clearly heard early Tuesday around the city of 400,0000 as the Israeli forces, backed by artillery and attack helicopters, moved into neighborhoods east and south of Gaza City, as Israeli gunboats shelled the coast from the west.

The Palestinian residents told The Associated Press the fighting left several buildings and structures in flames, including a lumberyard and thick smoke blanketed the area.

The Israeli military confirmed that a battle was in progress.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stood within Hamas rocket range Monday and warned Islamic militants that they face an "iron fist" unless they agree to Israeli terms for an end to war in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas showed no signs of wavering, however, with its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, saying the militants were "closer to victory."

Despite the tough words, Egypt said it was making slow progress in brokering a truce, and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair said elements were in place for a cease-fire.

As Olmert spoke in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, Israeli tanks, gunboats and warplanes hammered suspected hiding places of Hamas operatives who control the poor, densely populated territory just across the border.

After nightfall, flares and explosions lit up the sky over Gaza and heavy gunfire was heard in parts of the coastal territory of 1.4 million people.

Hamas fighters battled Israeli troops on the outskirts of Gaza City and launched 15 rockets at southern Israel.

Fighting picked up early Tuesday, as Israeli forces, backed by artillery and naval shelling, advanced closer to Gaza City from the south, witnesses said.

Khader Mussa, 35, a resident of the area under attack, told The Associated Press by telephone that he saw two apartment buildings on fire. He said he was huddling in the basement of his building with 25 other people, including his pregnant wife and his parents. "The gates of hell have opened," he said. "God help us."

Gaza's Hamas prime minister insisted on an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of blockaded border crossings as part of any truce.

"As we are in the middle of this crisis, we tell our people we, God willing, are closer to victory. All the blood that is being shed will not go to waste," Haniyeh said on Hamas' Al Aqsa television. But he said the group was also pursuing a diplomatic track to end the conflict that "will not close."

Haniyeh sat a desk in a room with a Palestinian flag and a Quran in the background. His location was unclear; Israeli airstrikes have targeted militant chiefs, and most are in hiding.

The fighting began Dec. 27 and has killed more than 900 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian medical officials. Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have been killed.

As diplomats struggled for traction in truce efforts, Olmert said Israel would only end military operations if Hamas stops rocketing Israel, as it has done for years, and is unable to rearm after combat subsides.

"Anything else will be met with the Israeli people's iron fist," Olmert said. "We will continue to strike with full strength, with full force until there is quiet and rearmament stops."

A few hours before Olmert spoke, a rocket hit a house in Ashkelon but caused no casualties. Olmert addressed regional mayors in the relative safety of the basement of a public building during his two-hour visit; he has toured other towns hit by rockets since the war began.

Later, he tempered his tough talk, saying: "I really hope that the efforts we are making with the Egyptians these days will ripen to a result that will enable us to end the fighting."

Ashkelon is 10 miles from the border with Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas has Iranian-supplied rockets that can reach 25 miles into southern Israel.

Inside Gaza, an Israeli battalion commander identified only as Lt. Col. Yehuda said troops had not met significant resistance and had found several houses booby-trapped either with regular explosives, or by sealing the windows and doors and opening cooking gas valves.

"A couple of days ago, an armed squad popped up from a tunnel that was concealed by a nearby building. We took them out with tank fire and a bulldozer," he said.

In another incident, the commander said, his men spotted a suicide bomber on a bicycle.

"He ran off to take cover in a building, presumably to draw us in," Yehuda said. "We demolished the building on top of him with a bulldozer."

Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg said troops were "tightening the encirclement" of Gaza City and were "constantly on the move."

The comments by Yehuda and Eisenberg were approved by Israeli military censors.

They spoke to a small group of reporters who accompanied Israeli units inside Gaza.

Israeli forces have not allowed journalists to enter Gaza to cover the war.

Israeli warplanes pounded suspected Hamas positions in Gaza City, and navy gunboats fired at least 25 shells. Smoke billowed over buildings.

At least 20 Palestinians died Monday, some of them from wounds suffered on previous days, Gaza health officials said.

A girl, a doctor and a Hamas militant were killed in the northern Gaza Strip, said Basim Abu Wardeh, head of Kamal Adwan hospital.

The doctor rushed to evacuate the wounded from a building where two airstrikes had taken place and was killed by a third, Abu Wardeh said. Four other medics were injured, one critically.

The Israeli military said four soldiers were injured, one seriously, in what an initial inquiry concluded was a "friendly fire" incident in northern Gaza.

Israel has sent reserve units into Gaza to help thousands of ground forces already in the territory, and fighting has persisted despite a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire. Egypt has assumed a role as mediator between Israel and Hamas.

Talks "are progressing slowly but surely because each party wants to score some points," Hossam Zaki, the spokesman for Egypt's Foreign Ministry, told the British Broadcasting Corp. "We would like to be able to bridge some gaps and then proceed immediately to a cease-fire."

Zaki, however, said Egypt could not provide certain guarantees that Israelis seek, such as a halt to rocket fire.

"We'll enhance our efforts, but this is not an issue between Israel and Egypt," Zaki told the BBC. "It is an issue between Israel and Gaza, and this is something that will have to be worked out, as the (U.N.) Security Council says, in Gaza."

Much of the diplomacy focuses on an area of southern Gaza just across the Egyptian border known as the Philadelphi corridor that serves as a weapons smuggling route, making Egypt critical to both sides in any deal. The name of the corridor is an Israel military label.

Israel wants those routes sealed and monitored as part of any peace deal, and has been bombing tunnels that run under that border.

"I think the elements of an agreement for the immediate cease-fire are there," Blair said in Cairo. He added that, while more work needed to be done, he hoped to see a cease-fire "in the coming days."

Israeli Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad planned to travel Tuesday to Egypt for talks.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said European military observers should be sent to Gaza to monitor any eventual cease-fire.

Israel's chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, said the fighting was "difficult and complex" and that Hamas militants were setting boobytraps and firing missiles from the rooftops of civilian homes.

"There is a whole city built underground in Gaza. Lots of big weapons warehouses," Benayahu said. Soldiers also uncovered a tunnel dug inside Gaza that led 300 yards into Israel, he said.

In Monday's fighting, the army said it carried out more than 25 airstrikes, hitting squads of gunmen, mortar launchers and two vehicles carrying Hamas militants.

It said ground troops came under fire from militants in a mosque. An Israeli aircraft attacked the squad, and Israeli troops then took over the mosque, confiscating rockets and mortar shells.

With Israeli troops surrounding Gaza's main population centers, Israeli leaders have said the operation is close to achieving its goals. Security officials say they have killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including top commanders, but there has been no way to confirm the claims.

Aid agencies said they have resumed relief operations in Gaza, but fighting still prevents them from evacuating the sickest people and reaching all those who need help.

The international Red Cross said it brought in seven truckloads of medical supplies and would distribute them to hospitals overwhelmed by the influx of patients.

International aid groups, however, say Israel is not doing enough to protect Palestinian civilians as well as aid workers. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced and many basic food items are no longer available, the office of the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator said.

As many 88 percent of Gaza's residents now require food aid, up from 80 percent before the war, said Helene Gayle, president of the international aid agency CARE.

The three-hour lull in fighting that Israel allows for humanitarian aid to move around Gaza is not sufficient, she said.
___

Barzak reported from Gaza City; Torchia from Jerusalem. Carley Petesch in New York and Eliane Engeler contributed to this report.


Gaza death toll tops 900
By Nidal al-Mughrabi

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An Israeli soldier stands in an observation post near the border with the northern Gaza Strip January … photo

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel won renewed support from its key ally the United States on Monday when President George W. Bush said a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip depended on Hamas ending its rocket fire on Israeli towns.

As the Palestinian death toll passed 900, including many civilians, troops tightened their grip around urban areas in search of elusive guerrillas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would pursue the 17-day-old war as long as it took.

Troops and tanks, backed by warplanes and helicopters that mounted more than 25 air strikes, probed into guerrilla defenses around the city of Gaza, wary of snipers and booby traps. Hamas fighters kept largely out of sight, firing several rockets into Israel and bracing for an all-out assault that may yet come.

As international diplomats worked with Egypt on a truce plan, an Israeli military spokesman said the army had yet to launch a much-heralded "Phase 3" of the war, following the initial air campaign and then ground advance.

But reserve units had moved in, he said, to hold positions and free up regulars for thrusts deeper into the city of Gaza.

Hamas's government leader in Gaza made a rare television and radio broadcast from a secret location, promising that "victory is at hand" and saying the many deaths there would haunt Bush.

The bloodshed has burst open fragile faultlines in the map of Middle East diplomacy, with the Bush administration in its final week standing firm behind Israel, European governments pressing it to call off its attacks and Arab leaders speaking out against the Jewish state.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, an oil power and one of several Arab governments whose pro-American stance is far from popular with its people, accused Israel of "racist extermination" and said it hoped Bush's successor Barack Obama would work swiftly to resolve the 60-year-old Palestinian issue.

BUSH CALLS ON HAMAS TO CHOOSE

Bush said Hamas Islamists, who won a 2006 parliamentary election and seized control of Gaza 18 months ago, had to act to end the misery of the enclave's 1.5 million people.

"I'm for a sustainable ceasefire, and a definition of sustainable ceasefire is Hamas stops firing rockets into Israel ... I happen to believe the choice is Hamas's to make," he said.

Supporting Israel's view that "Operation Cast Lead" is one of self-defense against rockets that had killed 18 people since 2001, Bush said Israel should be mindful of "innocent folks."

Figures from Palestinian medics indicate at least 909 people have been killed. The health minister in Gaza's Hamas-run government said close to 400 of those were woman and children.

Medics said Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians, including at least five civilians, in Monday's violence. Israel says 10 of its soldiers and three civilians have been killed since it launched its offensive on December 27.

Saudi Arabia's cabinet said in a statement: "The extermination Israel is launching upon the Palestinian people in Gaza has denuded Israeli leaders of humanity and places their policies in the ranks of racist extermination."

It hoped Obama, who takes office on January 20 and who has called the civilian deaths "heartbreaking," would work immediately on a "fair resolution of the Palestinian question."

Obama has made no clear policy statement on the fighting.

CAIRO TALKS

International Middle East envoy Tony Blair said after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt on Monday that "the elements of an agreement of the immediate ceasefire are there and are now being worked on very hard in great detail."

Egypt, another Arab government close to Washington but with a strong Islamist opposition, is trying to broker a ceasefire to halt the fighting on its northern border. A senior Western diplomat and a Hamas official called Monday's talks positive.

Israeli leaders, who are also fighting for re-election on February 10, have given few clues on how long they are prepared to continue the offensive, although some officials have cited the inauguration of Obama, a U.N. ceasefire resolution and the election as factors pushing them toward calling off the troops.

Political sources said Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, head of the ruling Kadima party, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, head of center-left Labor, wanted to halt the operation as soon as possible. But, the sources said, Olmert, who resigned as Kadima chief in September over a corruption probe, disagreed.

Israel, backed by its Western allies, says any ceasefire must depend on Hamas halting rocket fire -- 16 landed in Israel on Monday, the army said -- and, crucially, also wants measures to stop Hamas from rearming via the tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border, in an area known as the Philadelphi corridor.

"We want Hamas to understand there will be no possibility of smuggling arms into Gaza, because any such attempt will be met by the iron fist of the Israeli people,"

Olmert said. "Nothing more, nothing less. If it takes time, it takes time."

Hamas negotiators returned to Cairo late on Monday after consulting the leadership in exile in Damascus. Hamas's leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said on television that it was ready to negotiate a truce but insisted it would do so only if Israel pulled back all its forces and ended a blockade on Gaza.

"After 17 days of this mad war, Gaza will not be broken and Gaza will not collapse," Haniyeh said.

Western and Israeli officials said diplomats were discussing an internationally-assisted technical monitoring system to help Egypt stop weapons smuggling and intercept rocket shipments.

Israeli warplanes have repeatedly bombed the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza's 14-km (nine-mile) border with Egypt, seemingly trying to damage tunnels. Western diplomats have said Israel might also decide to send in ground troops there.


(Additional reporting by Adam Entous, Ori Lewis, Alastair Macdonald, Luke Baker, Alistair Lyon, Jeffrey Heller and Joseph Nasr in Jerusalem, Wafa Amr in Ramallah, Dan Williams in Gaza and Alaa Shahine in Cairo; Writing by Alastair Macdonald)