Israel sends troops into GazaBy David Pratt, Foreign Editor
ISRAELI forces crossed the border into the Gaza Strip last night, in what appeared to be the beginning of a ground offensive against Islamist Hamas.
A column of Israeli tanks, some firing their weapons, rolled into the north of Gaza under cover of darkness accompanied by combat helicopters, according to a Palestinian witness in the town of Beit Lahiya. There were reports of heavy firefights as Israeli troops entered the strip, with local television networks broadcasting images of soldiers marching into Gaza after dark. An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the incursion and said the aim was to seize areas from which Hamas was launching rocket attacks on southern Israel.
"The objective is to destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure in the area of operations," Major Avital Leibovitch said.
Israeli tanks and some 10,000 soldiers had been poised on the Gaza Strip border in recent days preparing for a possible ground assault, as militants kept up rocket strikes on southern Israel in defiance of international calls for a halt to such attacks. As part of the latest escalation, Israel also launched artillery fire on Gaza for the first time in an offensive that is now entering its second week.
Defence officials insisted that the heavy artillery fire earlier in the evening was intended to detonate Hamas explosive devices and mines planted along the border area before troops marched in. Witnesses however also confirmed that an Israeli air strike on a mosque in the town of Beit Lahiya took place as people prayed inside.
At least 11 civilians, including children, were killed and 50 wounded, Hamas and medical officials said. Rescuers pulled people from the debris and the bodies of victims lay in pools of blood, the witnesses said.
Israel has targeted mosques before saying that Hamas had used them as command posts and fire bases.
The raid brought the Palestinian death toll to at least 446, with about 2,050 wounded, in the worst sustained bloodshed in decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Four Israelis have been killed in cross-border rocket attacks by Hamas and other militant groups.
From early yesterday morning Israeli air strikes targeted Gaza and naval vessels also shelled the area from the Mediterranean. One strike killed Abu Zakaria al-Jamal, a senior commander of Hamas's armed wing. He was the second Hamas leader killed in three days.
But Hamas remains defiant, saying: "Whoever thought a change in the political area could come through the bombs of planes and the tanks and without dialogue is an illusionist."
A senior Hamas official said their fighters had killed a number of Israeli soldiers in eastern Gaza.
Israel has already ordered the call-up of tens of thousands of military reservists as part of the offensive. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said the government ordered the armed forces "to draft the necessary reservists, on a scale of tens of thousands of troops". The mobilisation is also seen as a necessary measure against any potential Palestinian uprising or outbreak of violence in the West Bank.
The Israeli attacks have sparked a wave of protests around the world, and yesterday thousands of demonstrators marched in solidarity with the Palestinians in European cities.
In London, organisers said at least 75,000 protesters, led by singer Annie Lennox, marched with Palestinian flags and placards with slogans such as "End the siege on Gaza" and "Stop the massacre." The Metropolitan Police put the march figure at 10,000, and made several arrests after violence flared outside the Israeli Embassy. On the diplomatic front, the European Union president, the Czech Republic, said the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza was "defensive, not offensive" action. Prime Minister Gordon Brown meanwhile kept up the pressure on Israel to stop its military action in a phone call yesterday with counterpart Ehud Olmert.
"The Prime Minister has spoken again today to Prime Minister Olmert, and is pressing hard for an immediate ceasefire," a Number 10 spokesman said.
"Rocket attacks from Hamas must stop, and we have called for a halt to Israeli military action in Gaza. Too many have died and we need space to get humanitarian supplies to those who need them."
The plight of the 1.5 million Palestinians crammed into Gaza, meanwhile, was growing more desperate, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which warned food, water and medical supplies were running short.
Gaza's power plant has already shut down and the sanitation system cannot treat the sewage. In the winter cold, fuel for heating and cooking was no longer available, aid agencies said.
Israel has denied a humanitarian crisis is unfolding and says it has allowed food and medicine convoys into Gaza daily.
