Israel launches ground assault on Gaza

Military aims to capture rocket launching sites; Hamas vows land will be 'graveyard' for troops

JERUSALEM - Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza last night, opening a ground war against the militant group Hamas after a week of intense airstrikes.

Israeli officials said the goal was "to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas," the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza's government, and that the campaign would be difficult and could take "many long days."

The ground attack brings new risks and the prospect of significantly higher casualties on both sides in a confrontation that, even before this phase began, had taken the lives of more than 460 Palestinians and four Israelis.

Sharp explosions rang out across Gaza, and tank fire and airstrikes lit the darkened sky well into today as Israel continued to pound the coastal territory by land, air, and sea.

In a statement, the Israeli military said a key objective was to "take control" of the rocket launching sites Hamas has used to fire at southern Israel.

The Hamas military wing said it was firing mortars at approaching Israeli troops. Hamas threatened suicide attacks against Israel and vowed that Gaza would become the Israeli Army's "graveyard."

The exact number of troops entering Gaza was not being publicized, but the military said the ground operation involved "large numbers" of forces including infantry, tanks, and engineering and artillery corps. Last night, the Israeli prime minister's office said that a call up of thousands of army reserve troops, approved earlier, had begun.

Palestinian hospitals reported three civilians killed by midnight and the Hamas-run Al Aqsa television reported that five Israeli soldiers had been killed. An Israeli military spokesman said he had no information about casualties and suggested that the Hamas reports may have been concocted to lower Israeli morale.

World leaders called on Hamas and Israel to accept an immediate cease-fire, and in several European cities tens of thousands of protesters demanded that Israel end its bombing campaign. Late yesterday, the United States blocked approval of a UN Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and expressing concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas.

While a ground campaign in densely populated Gaza is likely to increase the civilian death toll there, the Israeli Army also faces new threats.

Hamas has had 18 months since Israel withdrew from the territory to smuggle in more weapons for use against tanks and troops. Its more sophisticated arsenal has been on display over the last weeks and, even after eight days of punishing airstrikes by Israel, the group has shown the ability to continue to fire scores of longer range rockets from Gaza into Israeli cities.

Rockets fired from Gaza have plagued southern Israel for years. The rockets have drawn Israeli forces into the coastal territory repeatedly since they formally withdrew and the Jewish settlements there were evacuated in 2005. A 48-hour raid in March 2008, aimed at inflicting a cost on Hamas for its continuing rocket fire, killed nearly 100 Palestinians.

Israeli officials have said repeatedly that their aim now is not to fully reoccupy Gaza. But it was clear this time that the military expected a grueling operation.

"This will not be easy and it will not be short," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on national television shortly after the ground invasion began. He did not elaborate on how long Israel hoped to hold the rocket-launching sites. And it remained an open question whether Israel would try to oust the Hamas government.

The ground operation began after a week of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces on Hamas security installations, weapons stores, and symbols of government in the Palestinian enclave."

This has always been a stage-by-stage process," said Shlomo Dror, a Defense Ministry spokesman, in a telephone interview as the ground campaign was getting underway. "Hamas can stop it whenever it wants," by stopping its rocket fire, Dror said.

Hamas leaders in Gaza were in hiding, but a Hamas spokesman said last night by video that the "moment of decision has arrived."

"You entered like rats," Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Israeli soldiers in a statement on Hamas's Al Aqsa TV. "Your entry to Gaza won't be easy. Gaza will be a graveyard for you, God willing."

Hamas has also threatened to use the invasion as an opportunity to capture more Israeli soldiers. The group has been holding an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, hostage for more than two years.

Before Israel started the invasion, warplanes carried out dozens of strikes in Gaza yesterday, the eighth day of the offensive against Hamas. Many of those attacks were on open areas around Beit Hanoun and the main route connecting the north and south of Gaza, most likely to clear those areas of mines and tunnels and to hamper movement before troops entered.

A mosque in northern Gaza was also hit yesterday, during evening prayer time, in what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike. At least 13 worshipers were killed and about 30 wounded, according to Palestinian hospital officials. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

The air force has struck several mosques in the past week, with the military saying they served as Hamas bases and weapons stores.

Yesterday afternoon, Israeli artillery started shelling open areas in the northern Gaza Strip for the first time in the current campaign.

The Israeli Army also dropped thousands of leaflets into some residential districts warning inhabitants to evacuate their homes. Because of "the activity of terrorist groups," the leaflets said in Arabic, the army "is obliged to respond quickly and work from inside your residential area."

The Israeli military said yesterday evening that the air force had struck about 40 Hamas targets during the day, including weapons storage facilities, smuggling tunnels, rocket launchers, and launching sites. Palestinians said the airstrikes also hit the American International School, a private institution in northern Gaza, killing a school guard.

Before the ground war began, hospital officials in Gaza City put the first week's Palestinian death toll at more than 460, the Associated Press reported. Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have been killed in the past week by rocket attacks from Gaza.

An Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas, which took effect last June, began to break down in November, and Hamas declared it over on Dec. 19.

Since then, rocket fire out of Gaza has intensified.

Israel began its offensive on Dec. 27, and Hamas has responded by firing longer-range rockets deeper into Israel.

Yesterday, a rocket hit an apartment building in the major port city of Ashdod, about 20 miles north of Gaza, lightly wounding two Israelis. Other rockets landed in the coastal city of Ashkelon and in the Negev Desert town of Netivot.

The latest round of rocket fire has demonstrated the extent to which Hamas has been able to upgrade its arsenal with weapons parts smuggled into Gaza since it seized control of the territory 18 months ago, according to American and Israeli officials.

Compared with the rockets it had used in the past, the latest batch has been more accurate and flown farther - close to two dozen miles, enough to reach cities in southern Israel.

In his weekly radio address to the nation that was taped Friday, President Bush said Hamas had instigated the latest violence.

He called the rocket barrages from Gaza "an act of terror that is opposed by the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, President Abbas."

Mahmoud Abbas is president of the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank.

Bush, expressing deep concern about the humanitarian situation facing the people of Gaza, added that the United States was "leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful cease-fire that is fully respected."

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.