8 Killed in Gaza Assault

Israeli tanks and bulldozers pushed deep into the southern end of the Gaza Strip early Thursday in an incursion that left eight Palestinians dead, half of them fighters.

Backed by helicopters and missile-armed drone aircraft, about 50 tanks and bulldozers entered the Gaza Strip at dawn near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, witnesses said.

The tanks moved about five miles into the strip, taking up positions near the long-shuttered international airport and cutting off the main highway connecting Rafah with the rest of the Gaza Strip.

A series of airstrikes and tank attacks killed eight, including a 12-year-old boy, and wounded at least 26 Palestinians, said Ali Moussa, director of Rafah’s Abu Youssef al Najar Hospital.

The tanks remained in position Thursday night. Troops searched houses and combed the area for tunnels that are used to smuggle weapons from Egypt, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.

The Rafah area is riddled with tunnels linking the Gaza Strip with the Egyptian border town of Rafah. Israeli officials have long accused the Egyptian government of turning a blind eye to the weapons flow.

On June 25, Gaza militants used a tunnel in the north to stage a cross-border ambush that killed two Israeli soldiers. A third was taken hostage. Israel closed the Rafah crossing and staged regular airstrikes, tank offensives and artillery bombardments that have killed more than 150 people in the Gaza Strip.

Among Thursday’s casualties were two members each of the armed wings of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, officials said.

Anis Abu Awad, 12, was killed by a tank shell, officials said.

Since the start of the Israeli offensive six weeks ago, most of the incursions have focused on the middle and northern parts of the Gaza Strip, targeting areas from which militants regularly launch rockets toward southern Israeli towns.