Israel pushes further into Gaza

The Swiss Red Cross has criticised the Israelis for 'targeting Palestinian ambulance crews'

Israeli troops have made their deepest push yet into Gaza since the beginning of the 18-day-old conflict, as Palestinians prepare for another night of heavy shelling.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday its air force had hit what it described as 60 Hamas targets overnight, while 19 rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel in the same period.

Israeli jets have continued to pound the city of Rafah in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt.

Israel is using "bunker-busting" bombs in an attempt to destroy underground tunnels it says have been used to smuggle weapons and goods into the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said tens of thousands of Palestinians had fled their homes after the Israeli military dropped leaflets warning them of intensive air strikes.
"A large part of Rafah has been completely reduced to rubble... it has been described as hell on earth by some of the witnesses we have met," he said.

Moyheldin said Israeli troops were also closing in on Gaza City, which is now surrounded by both tanks and navy vessels along the coast.

He said the Israelis appeared to be intensifying their assault on Gaza City after dark.

"The pattern [that is emerging is] the Israeli military engaging overnight in fierce fighting and then by early morning the military returns to its position.

"As the sun sets around us that's what many Palestinians are bracing themselves for - another night of deadly and intense firing," Mohyeldin said.
Israelis 'softening up' targets

Mohyeldin said there was speculation that Israeli soldiers were limiting their operation during the day because of stiff resistance from Palestinian fighters on the ground during daylight hours.

Many also suggest that the Israelis might also be looking to "soften up" what they believe to be Hamas targets - such as booby-trapped homes and weapons stores.

Al Jazeera - the only international broadcaster with journalists based both inside Gaza and Israel - reported on Tuesday that the heaviest fighting between Israeli and Palestinian fighters was in Tal al-Hawa, in the south of Gaza City.

Serious clashes were also reported in Beit Lahiya, to the north of the city, and east of Khan Younis.

The AFP news agency reported Israeli tanks, supported by warplanes, had moved into several southern neighbourhoods of Gaza City and that Palestinian fighters were responding with mortar fire.

A spokesman for the Palestinian health ministry said dozens of calls for ambulances had been received, but none could be dispatched because of the fighting.

Combat continued despite another day of pleas from both the United Nations and the European Union to stop the violence, which has so far killed around 970 Palestinians and wounded 4,300 others.

Civilians make up about 40 per cent of casualties, with the majority of those being women and children.

Diplomatic frustration

Expressing frustration at the failure of both sides to adhere to a legally binding UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said he planned to visit the region in a bid to help end Israel's air and ground offensive in Gaza, as well as Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel.
"To both sides, I say: just stop, now," the UN chief told a news conference on Monday. "Too many people have died. There has been too much civilian suffering. Too many people, Israelis and Palestinians, live in daily fear of their lives."

But Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, said the offensive which includes the latest deployment of reservists into Palestinian neighbourhoods, must continue until Hamas is completely disarmed.

He said the military operation would end once Hamas's military wing halted its rocket attacks.

"We want to end the operation when the two conditions we have demanded are met: ending the rocket fire and stopping Hamas's rearmament. If these two conditions are met, we will end our operation in Gaza," he said in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon.

The Israeli military said air raids were carried out on at least 25 targets across the Gaza Strip and Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, said on Monday that the army had "achieved in 16 days what no other country in the world fighting terror has done in 16 years".

Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader and ousted Palestinian prime minister, said that Israel would not emerge victorious from Gaza City.

"This holy blood that has been spilt will never be in vain, it will make the victory. The children's and women's blood and bodies will be a curse which will haunt this occupation," he said.

Meanwhile, Christer Zettergren, the secretary-general of the Swedish Red Cross, said seven ambulances operated by the Red Crescent were damaged last week in Gaza.

Zettergren on Tuesday accused Israeli soldiers of firing at emergency crews and described the shootings as "very deliberate".

He is due to travel to the region on Wednesday to donate 10 ambulances to the Red Crescent.

Also on Tuesday, the AFP news agency reported that the US military had been forced to cancel a shipment of munitions from a Greek port to a US warehouse in Israel because of objections from Athens.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

UN halts Gaza aid after convoy hit

The United Nations aid agency has suspended its operations in the Gaza Strip in the wake of a series of Israeli attacks on its personnel and buildings.

"UNRWA decided to suspend all its operations in the Gaza Strip because of the increasing hostile actions against its premises and personnel," Adnan Abu Hasna, a Gaza-based spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, said on Thursday.

The move came after Israeli tanks shelled a UN convoy earlier in the day, killing a Palestinian UN worker and injuring two others, as lorries were travelling to the Erez crossing to pick up humanitarian supplies meant to have been allowed in during a three-hour suspension of fire.

At least three UN-run schools have also been hit by Israeli fire, killing scores of civilians, during the 13 days of Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.

'Tragic deaths'

John Ging, the head of the UN relief agency in Gaza, said that the casualties in the convoy attack were Palestinian civilian contractors hired to bring supplies from the crossing points.

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"They were co-ordinating their movements with the Israelis, as they always do, only to find themselves being fired at from the ground troops," he told Al Jazeera.

"It has resulted tragically in the death of one and the injury of two others."

Richard Miron, the UN spokesman, said the Israeli army had been notified in advance about the movements of the UNRWA convoy.

All convoys to Erez and the Kerem Shalom, which has been the main crossing point used for bringing humanitarian supplies into Gaza, were suspended after the incident.

"This underlines the fundamental insecurity inside Gaza at a time when we are trying to address the dire humanitarian needs of the population there," Miron said.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Gaza City, said that 50 bodies were recovered during the three-hour lull, raising the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza to at least 763, including more than 200 children, since air raids first began on December 27.

More than 3,121 people have also been wounded. Eight Israeli soldiers and three civilians have died in the same period.

The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of Thursday's incident.

A temporary halt in the nearly two-week Israeli offensive to allow humanitarian aid into the strip lasted from 1pm (11:00 GMT) to 4pm (14:00 GMT).

Explosions were heard in northern Gaza shortly after the period elapsed.

Israeli bulldozers crossed into Gaza during the lull and destroyed a number of houses, Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from southern Israel near the border, said.

Rafah bombing

Thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in the southern Gaza Strip as Israeli forces bombarded Rafah earlier on Thursday.

Homes, a mosque and tunnels were hit in the area along the Egyptian border, witnesses said.

The Israeli military had dropped leaflets beforehand warning it would "bomb the area due to its use by terrorists to [dig] tunnels and to stock up [on weapons]".

Hundreds of tunnels are believed to cross under the Egyptian border around Rafah allowing Palestinians to smuggle in basic supplies, in short supply due to the Israeli blockade, and weapons.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the military had dropped the flyers "as in the past, to avoid civilian casualties".

Besieged Gazans

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Gaza City, said the flyers would have frightened the civilian population of southern Gaza.
"Israel has cut the northern part of Gaza from the southern part. Those in the southern part wouldn't be able to go to the north seeking refuge and vice versa," he said.

Mohyeldin said there was also another night of heavy bombardment in the north around Gaza City.

"Most of the targets hit throughout the northern part of the territory included mosques and homes that have been previously struck on the previous days of this conflict. Some of the government buildings and police stations that were nearly destroyed are now completely levelled," he said.

The AFP news agency quoted witnesses as saying that dozens of Israeli tanks had entered southern Gaza and were heading towards Rafah.

Fierce fighting was also reported between Palestinian fighters and Israeli soldiers around Khan Yunis.

It was unclear if the latest offensive was the "third stage" of the offensive approved by the Israeli security cabinet on Wednesday.

A senior Israeli defence official said a meeting chaired by Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, had "approved continuing the ground offensive, including a third stage that would broaden it by pushing deeper into populated areas".

'Shocking' incident

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday accused the Israeli military of not helping wounded Palestinians in an incident in Gaza City that it described as "shocking".

ICRC and Palestinian Red Crescent workers said in a statement that several wounded Palestinians and four weakened children were found alongside 12 dead bodies in houses hit by shelling in Zaytun, less than 100 metres from Israeli positions.

"The ICRC believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded," it said.

The Red Cross team, including four ambulances, had only gained safe passage from Israeli army to access the neighbourhood on January 7 after trying for four days, the ICRC said.

Meanwhile, Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank shot dead a Palestinian in a confrontation at a Jewish settlement near Jerusalem, Israeli radio reported.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies