Israel expands Gaza strike, kills 9 Palestinians

The Israeli army killed nine Palestinians in Gaza yesterday as it poured tanks and soldiers into the coastal strip, expanding a ground offensive intended to root out militants firing rockets into Israeli towns.

Palestinian officials said dozens of tanks pushed into north Gaza while more forces massed on the border, hours after 29 Palestinians and three Israelis were killed on Thursday, the territory's bloodiest day in four years of conflict.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his security cabinet on Thursday ordered the army to carve out a "buffer zone" to halt rocket attacks that have fuelled criticism of his plan to withdraw Jewish settlers from the territory by the end of 2005.

The operation, codenamed "Days of Reckoning", followed the killing of two Israeli pre-schoolers by a Qassam rocket in the border town of Sderot on Wednesday. Eluding troops, militants fired off another rocket yesterday but caused no casualties.

The offensive was directed at refugee camps in northern Gaza, which the army said was where the rockets were fired from.

Gunbattles raged through most of the day in Jabalya camp, a militant stronghold and home to over 100,000 Palestinians. Army bulldozers ploughed through houses to clear paths for forces as troops made their way through the camp's booby-trapped streets.

An Israeli missile strike in the camp killed a member of the Islamic militant group Hamas as he tried to fire a rocket. The attack also injured another gunman and six civilians.

Gaza radio stations urged Palestinian civilians to evacuate streets to avoid exposing militants and to avoid being hit.

In Sderot, thousands of Israeli mourners, many wailing with grief, gathered to bury the two-year-old girl and four-year-old boy, the children of Ethiopian immigrants, killed by a rocket on Wednesday. Hamas, at the heart of a campaign of suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israelis, called the incursion "all-out war" and vowed not to submit.

The latest cycle of bloodshed has sent Mr Sharon scrambling to counter right-wing critics who say his plan to withdraw troops and settlers from Gaza next year has emboldened militants trying to give the impression that Israel is being driven out. Israel is determined to smash armed groups before leaving.

Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Sharon's rival in the rightist Likud party, suggested the prime minister might have to drop his Gaza plan if Palestinian attacks worsened to "catastrophic" levels.

Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid criticised the operation, saying it would not bring rocket attacks to a halt.

"There should be a balance in what could be done and what should be done," he told Israel's Channel 1 television. We shouldn't delude Sderot residents because we don't currently have the means to stop the Qassams completely."

Some Israeli commentators warned against getting bogged down in the camp's narrow streets, where soldiers are vulnerable and risk tangling with civilians.

They also warned of severe international condemnation should civilian casualties increase.

Israel's widely used military tactic of demolishing Palestinian homes during raids, which the army deems necessary to clear paths for forces or says are used by militants, continues to face much criticism at home and abroad.