Israeli Push Into Gaza Widens

Israeli troops consolidated their grip Friday on a densely populated swath of the northern Gaza Strip, widening an already bloody offensive and signaling their intent to settle in for a prolonged occupation -- a significant change of tactics in the volatile seaside territory.

At least 10 Palestinians were killed Friday in confrontations with Israeli forces around Jabaliya, the area’s largest refugee camp, which is home to more than 100,000 people. The latest deaths pushed the Palestinian toll in the 3-day-old offensive over 40. Three Israelis have died.

Israel’s decision to deploy hundreds of troops and scores of tanks and armored vehicles in such a crowded area -- and keep them there for an extended period -- poses new risks and dilemmas for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as he fights to keep alive his initiative to withdraw Israeli troops and Jewish settlers from Gaza by the end of next year.

The immediate goal of the offensive, code-named Days of Reckoning, is to end the almost-daily attacks on nearby Israeli towns by militants firing homemade Kassam rockets. More broadly, the Israeli army and Palestinian militants apparently have been trying to inflict ever-heavier blows before any pullout to avoid seeming to be the vanquished party.

Supporters of a withdrawal cite the spiraling violence as proof that Israel should get out of Gaza now; opponents say it is all the more reason to stay and fight. Benjamin Netanyahu, one of Sharon’s chief critics within the ruling Likud Party, said Friday that if Palestinian attacks reached “catastrophic” levels, the withdrawal initiative would have to be scrapped.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli called on Israel “to take every measure to ensure that only proportional force is used to counter the threats it faces.”

“We urge Israel to avoid civilian casualties and minimize humanitarian consequences,” he said. “These kinds of casualties can only make all of our efforts to achieve a durable peace more difficult.”

The offensive, which Sharon’s security Cabinet designated as open-ended, fueled debate in Israeli political and security circles about whether such an overwhelming show of force was the most effective strategy against small, mobile cells of militants firing Kassams.

The rockets usually fall harmlessly, but this week a strike in the Negev desert town of Sderot killed two young children.

Amid mounting casualties, Justice Minister Tommy Lapid said that the offensive probably would cause large numbers of civilian deaths without achieving real success in halting the rocket attacks.

“Some problems just don’t have an immediate solution, and Kassams appear to be an example of this,” Lapid told Israel Radio. “It is such a simple weapon that we simply cannot guarantee that a pipe containing some explosives won’t be lying in any backyard in Jabaliya.

“Yes, we can bomb and destroy whole neighborhoods in Gaza, but this would be a crime against humanity and will expose Israel to fierce international condemnation,” the justice minister added.

Others, though, said the takeover of northern Gaza did not go far enough. Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the powerful foreign affairs and defense committee of the Knesset, or parliament, urged seizing the entire coastal strip to “deal a harsh blow to the Kassam infrastructure for years to come.”

Israel besieged the village of Beit Hanoun for a month this summer, but its forces mainly had relied on pinpoint raids and after-the-fact retaliation to try to halt the rocket attacks.

This incursion was the first time that Israel broadcast its intention to establish and police a “buffer zone” six miles into northern Gaza.

For many Israelis, the move revived memories of southern Lebanon, where Israel was bloodied by a two-decade occupation that ended with the withdrawal of its troops in 2000. By Friday, Israeli commentary on the Gaza offensive was laced with such terms as “quagmire,” “war of attrition” and “bogged down.”

In Lebanon, too, the troops were sent to prevent attacks on Israeli border towns, but never succeeded in choking off hit-and-run Katyusha rocket attacks by guerrillas of the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah.

The Kassam attacks, however, have left Israeli officials feeling helpless and furious -- particularly after the most recent, which occurred on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. It also carried a highly emotional charge because the victims were so young.

Israeli television Friday repeatedly broadcast images of sobbing mourners at the tiny coffins of 2-year-old Dorit Inanso-Geneto and 4-year-old Yuval Abeba, both from Ethiopian immigrant families. The only other fatal Kassam attack, in June, also killed a toddler, along with an Israeli man.

Statements by top Israeli officials betrayed a raw desire to make the Palestinians pay. Israeli media quoted Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz as ordering troops and commanders to “exact a price” from Palestinian militants responsible for the rocket attacks.

For most of the conflict, now 4 years old, the Israeli army has avoided incursions into Jabaliya, considered prime turf for militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Military planners traditionally have been reluctant to wage urban warfare in the camp’s maze of narrow, sandy alleyways, which become perilous for troops and civilians alike.

Running battles raged again Friday throughout Jabaliya. The sound of explosions periodically tore through the rundown neighborhoods, punctuated by screams and ambulance sirens.

Masked Palestinian gunmen laid homemade landmines, lobbed hand grenades and fired on Israeli armored vehicles with assault rifles and antitank missiles. The Israelis responded with barrages of tank shells.

Israel closed the main Erez border crossing into Gaza, largely sealing off the battle from outside view. But Palestinians living in Jabaliya described scenes of fear and suffering.

“I heard a huge explosion and rushed to see what had happened,” said 15-year-old Ghassan Abassi. “I saw bodies on the ground; I helped collect the pieces. It was unbearable.”

In almost every corner of the camp were mourning tents for those killed over the last three days. Black flags fluttered, loudspeakers blared Koranic verses or nationalistic songs and smoke from piles of burning tires -- set ablaze by militants seeking cover from aerial-surveillance drones -- darkened the sky.

Although even Palestinian hospitals acknowledged that many of the dead were militants, at least one of those killed Friday was a child, and many of the injured were civilians, they said. At least five people died in two missile strikes -- one that killed a pair of Hamas members on a motorbike and another that targeted men near a school.

The Israeli military said members of six rocket-launching cells had been killed since the start of the fighting. The army, which accuses the militants of using civilians as cover, also released a surveillance video of fighters preparing to launch a rocket from a residential area.

Special correspondent Fayed abu Shammalah in Jabaliya contributed to this report.