On the sixteenth day of war since Israel launched a surprise air assault on Gaza, Israeli tanks backed by helicopter gunships pushed further toward the narrow strip's main population center, Gaza City. Ambushed by fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two sides battled for five hours Sunday morning, witnesses said. The fighting left at least 27 Palestinians dead, according to medical officials in Gaza. There was no immediate report of Israeli casualties.
The tank movement was seen in Gaza as a possible precursor to a new phase of the war, one in which Israeli forces move into the territory's most densely packed urban centers and refugee camps.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not directly address where the campaign would go next. But he did indicate that the war will go on.
"Israel is getting close to achieving the goals it set for itself," he told his cabinet during their weekly meeting. "But patience, determination and effort are still needed to realize these goals in a manner that will change the security situation in the south."
Israel has said that it intends to eliminate or vastly reduce Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel. The rockets continued to fly Sunday, with two landing in the city of Beersheba, 25 miles from Gaza, although no major injuries were reported. On Saturday, Israeli military officials said they bombed about 60 targets, while Hamas launched about 15 rockets into southern Israel, the lowest one-day total since the war began. One rocket struck the city of Ashkelon, 12 miles north of Gaza, wounding several people.
The Palestinian death toll rose to 869 Sunday, Gazan medical officials said. Thirteen Israelis have been killed since the war began Dec. 27. Eight Palestinians were killed Saturday when a shell crashed outside a home in the Jabalya refugee camp, Gazan medical officials said. The Israeli military denied responsibility, saying its forces were not in that area.
Weary Palestinians have braced themselves for the possibility that the worst is yet to come. On Saturday, warplanes dropped leaflets warning that an escalation in the fighting was likely. Thousands of the leaflets fell out of the sky onto the Shati refugee camp, a concrete slum where about 80,000 people live along the Mediterranean Sea. The written warnings were clear: Don't help Hamas, and evacuate your homes if there are any "terrorist elements" nearby.
But with Hamas fighters and supporters scattered everywhere in Gaza, civilians in the Shati camp wondered where they were supposed to go. "They are shelling everywhere -- it makes no difference to them whether people are civilians or militants," said Mahmoud Shahin, 60.
Intense firefights had already forced Shahin and his family to abandon their home north of Gaza City and seek refuge with relatives in the Shati camp. He said dogs were eating corpses in the streets of his old neighborhood. Gazans have seen firsthand the power of Israel's military many times over the years, he said. "But this time, it's different. It's awful. It's like a monster attack."
Many Gazans also reported receiving a surge in telephone calls overnight from Israeli intelligence officers, warning them of planned operations in their districts but also attempting to pump them for information. Other callers purported to be concerned Arabs from other countries, such as Libya and Algeria.
The Israeli military has mobilized tens of thousands of reserve soldiers in the past week. Government leaders have said they are debating whether to expand the war by sending troops into Gaza City and the territory's densely packed refugee camps, where the leadership of Hamas and many fighters are based.
Eight Palestinians were killed Saturday when a shell crashed outside a home in the Jabalya refugee camp, Gazan medical officials said. The Israeli military denied responsibility, saying its forces were not in that area.
Diplomats struggled to jump-start peace talks Saturday, a day after both Israel and Hamas rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire.
In Cairo, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, pressed Israeli and Hamas officials to sign on to the French-Egyptian proposal and warned of catastrophic consequences if the fighting escalated.
Abbas said both Hamas and Israel bear responsibility for the conflict, but he singled out Israel as responsible for hundreds of civilian casualties. "If Israel doesn't want to accept," he said of the cease-fire plan, "it will take the responsibility of perpetuating a waterfall of blood."
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after a bloody battle with Abbas's Fatah party, which was kicked out but still controls the West Bank.
The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said the Islamist movement would not give up or agree to a cease-fire until Israel withdrew and reopened border crossings into Gaza. Israel has imposed an economic blockade on Gaza since Hamas came to power.
In a televised speech from Damascus, the Syrian capital, Meshaal called the war a "holocaust" and said, "Let the aggression stop first, let the crossings open, and then people can look into the issue of calm."
Israel dismissed the Security Council resolution Friday, calling the plan "unworkable" because it lacked any guarantee that Hamas would stop firing rockets.
Meanwhile, with food increasingly scarce and electricity shortages widespread, Gazans struggled to endure.
In Gaza City, the owners of a bakery, the Extra Baguette, decided to share access to their still-functioning generator. They installed several small electric ovens on the sidewalk and invited passersby to bake their own bread, if they had their own ingredients.
In the Shati camp, another baker, Zuhair Abu al-Arraj, opened his house to a steady stream of neighbors looking for a place to cook. Arraj did not have electricity, but he did have a clay oven, which he powered with cardboard refuse and paper trash collected from the streets.
"Give me more, give me more," he said, sticking his hands out to two women who had brought baskets of dough. Dripping with sweat and sporting bloodshot eyes, Arraj had baked 400 loaves by midafternoon. "The important thing is just to end this suffering," he said.
The Israeli military ordered another three-hour pause in its operations Saturday to enable relief workers to deliver supplies and send ambulances to collect the wounded. But sporadic gunfire and explosions occurred during the lull nevertheless, witnesses said. And humanitarian-aid agencies said they still faced enormous challenges.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency said the Israeli military refused to allow aid shipments through Gaza's border checkpoints Saturday, saying the crossings were closed for the Sabbath. The U.N. agency had temporarily suspended deliveries Friday after it said two aid workers in a truck convoy had been shot and killed by Israeli forces.
The Israeli military said Saturday that an investigation had found no evidence that its soldiers were involved.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the Relief and Works Agency, said Israel had formally assured the United Nations that its workers were not being targeted.
But he said a lack of trust remained.
"We've had enough expressions of regret," he said. "It's time for Israel to step up to the plate and deliver."
Photo : A Palestinian boy wounded during Israel's offensive is carried into Shifa hospital in Gaza January 11, 2009.
Tags: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Lebanon, Palestinians, War
