Israel takes war against Hamas to the city streets of Gaza

Israel has engaged Hamas fighters in their urban strongholds for the first time as it warned civilians that it would escalate the war in Gaza.

By Damien McElroy in Sa'ad on the Israel-Gaza border
Published: 6:50PM GMT 10 Jan 2009

As both sides defied a United Nations resolution calling for a ceasefire and the crisis entered its third week, Israeli military aircraft dropped leaflets over the tiny Palestinian enclave that said "a new phase" of the offensive had begun.

The warning appeared to herald a fresh push by Israeli forces to cripple the Hamas military wing by confronting its fighters on the ground after a two-week campaign of air strikes and artillery fire.

The leaflets warned that Israel will soon "intensify its operations against the tunnels, arms depots, and terrorists throughout the Gaza Strip.

"For your security and that of your families, you are asked not to approach terrorists, weapons depots and arms," they said.

Israeli tanks and troops fought their way deeper into Gaza's main cities. The first gun battles on the outskirts of Gaza City saw Israeli soldiers kill 15 Hamas militants, while Palestinian medics said the overall toll rose to 821.

Israeli ground forces also claimed to have killed the commander of the Hamas rocket launching cells in Gaza City. The military said that Amir Mansi was spotted preparing an attack across the frontier with Israel when he was shot dead by infantry.

An Israeli spokesman told local newspapers that 300 Hamas fighters had been killed over the past two weeks.

From high ground just outside the Gaza Strip, large plumes of smoke were seen rising above buildings and loud explosions were heard during an afternoon lull.

Earlier Israel hit 40 targets across Gaza from the air, while a Hamas mortar strike injured five Israeli soldiers.

Eight members of a Palestinian family were reported to have been killed in the northern town of Jabaliya when a tank shell destroyed their home. The Israeli army denied that the incident took place.

A meeting of Israel's security cabinet on Sunday is expected to debate launching a broader infantry assault at the risk of suffering much heavier casualties than the 13 military and civilian deaths suffered since Operation Cast Lead was launched two weeks ago.

There were suggestions that a 48-hour pause in fighting to allow in humanitarian aid could precede the attack.

At ceasefire talks in Cairo, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority of the Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas proposed a joint force to patrol the border but rejected Israeli demands for a foreign troop presence on the Gaza frontier.

Mr Abbas, the moderate Palestinian leader in the West Bank, held talks with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, while a delegation from Hamas was scheduled to meet the country's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, questioned if Egypt was Israel's "partner" in suppressing Hamas.

Mr Abbas called on Israel to accept the compromise deal. He said: "If any party does not accept it, regrettably it will be the one bearing the responsibility, and if Israel doesn't want to accept, it will take the responsibility of perpetuating a waterfall of blood."

As if to echo that forecast, the Hamas leader in Damascus Khaled Meshaal compared Israel's assault to a "holocaust" and said it ended any chance of negotiations.

Platoons advanced on the fringes of Gaza City backed by armoured reconnaissance vehicles and close air support. Israeli officials warned that more tough fighting lay ahead before Hamas weapons and terror cells were destroyed.

"Hamas still has the capability to fire on Israel," said one Israeli military expert. "Even though the number of rockets coming out of Gaza is dropping, it still has a reasonable infrastructure we have not yet got to and tunnels we haven't yet destroyed."

Dogs led the way for the small knots of heavily laden combat forces in olive uniforms topped off with khaki camouflage netting. Hamas fighters had spent much of the campaign living among civilians and shunning engagements with Israeli troops. But a series of firefights took place.

Gaza's treacherous urban environment presents the stiffest challenge faced by Israeli forces in the battle so far. Military planners warned from the outset that Hamas would set booby traps in the narrow alleys and cramped corridors of the city.

Hamas was expected to replicate the tactics used by Hizbollah in the 2006 Lebanese war.

To counter the unseen threats the Israeli military has augmented its units with specially trained dogs. The dogs move ahead of the troops to detect explosives and trip wires laid across doorways.

"The army moves very slowly," a resident of the Jabalya refugee camp told the Israeli media. "The tanks approach houses, then they send the dogs. If it's a three-storey home, they send three dogs. The dogs have a camera on one leg and a walkie-talkie on the other. That's how the dogs transmit what is in the house."

Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed an anti-aircraft missile launcher thought to have been put in place to attack low-flying fighter jets or helicopters. Israel has long suspected that Hamas had been supplied with anti-aircraft by Iran but the raid provided the first physical evidence that the group had acquired sophisticated weaponry to challenge its aerial superiority.

Officials said that 40 air raids were also carried out in the early hours of Saturday against tunnels used to smuggle arms into the strip. Residents of the southern town of Rafah said that bombing raids on tunnels, some of which lie 50ft beneath the desert border crossing, had knocked out the town's electricity supply.

The task of sealing the tunnels poses the greatest challenge for diplomats attempting to resolve the crisis. Clans that straddle the border have created underground shafts that move goods on an industrial scale. According to Western officials, who have been briefed by Israel, some of the tunnels have rail lines that move cartloads of goods between overground loading bays. Hamas was thought to operate 50 tunnels before the outset of fighting but private owners face threats and intimidation if they refuse to handle the group's shipments.

"The tunnels are important, probably to the point that a preponderance of weapons have come through those tunnels," a Pentagon official was quoted as saying.

Israel announced a three-hour pause in offensive operations to allow Gaza's 1.4 million residents time to stock up on food or seek medical treatment. But the spread of troops inside Gaza has made it difficult to maintain a peaceful stance.

Hamas has made no parallel pledges to refrain from attacks or terrorist operations. By attacking the Israeli army, the group can provoke retaliation that is bound to intensify criticism of the siege of Gaza.

Palestinian medical officials said the number of people killed since fighting started in late December rose above 800.

United Nations agencies are ready to resume humanitarian shipments into Gaza after it received improved undertakings on free passage after an incident on Thursday when two forklift operators were killed.

The UN accused Israeli troops of shelling its convoy but the military said that its soldiers had not fired weapons in the vicinity. The alternative explanation is that a Hamas mortar crew had fired on the trucks.

An Israeli official yesterday accused the UN of having allowed its operations to have been co-opted.

"Do you know who the UNRWA's (UN Relief and Works Agency) workers are today in Gaza: they are Hamas people who distribute aid to those loyal to Hamas," said Dan Ashbel, the Israeli ambassador in Austria. "Even this aid organisation has been taken over by Hamas and is being used as a weapon against its own people."

Christopher Gunness, a UN spokesman, rejected the charge. "We have checked all the names of the 27,000 people who work for us against the Security Council list of known terrorists and there have been no matches," he said.