MIDDLE EAST: In the bloodiest fighting since Israel withdrew last year from Gaza, at least 20 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed yesterday as Israeli forces pushed into the northern part of the coastal strip in an attempt to halt the firing of rockets into Israel by Palestinian militants.
It was not clear how many of the dead were civilians, although most of the casualties were armed militants killed in fierce street battles with Israeli forces.
Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert ordered the military to step up the operation already under way in southern Gaza after Palestinian militants earlier this week fired rockets from the northern part of the strip into the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, which has more than 100,000 residents. There were no injuries, and militants have fired hundreds of rockets at small towns in southern Israel in recent months, but it was the furthest north the makeshift missiles had struck and the first time they had reached a major Israeli city.
Throughout the day, Israeli troops and armoured vehicles, having pushed into Gaza at around 2am with the backing of Apache helicopters, encountered fierce resistance from masked Palestinian militants. Armed men, hiding in the alleyways of the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, where most of the street fighting took place, battled Israeli forces with semi-automatic rifles and anti-tank rockets.
Israeli troops and tanks first took control of three Jewish settlements evacuated when the military and settlers pulled out 10 months ago and then pushed on to Beit Lahiya, from where many of the rockets have been fired.
Tanks moved between the houses and soldiers forced their way into several homes, taking up positions inside. Frightened residents sheltered in their homes.
In the deadliest incident, eight Palestinians were killed and 20 injured when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile and a tank fired two shells at a group of armed men in Beit Lahiya. Palestinians transported the injured to hospitals in private vehicles as ambulances struggled to deal with the high number of casualties.
The Israeli soldier was killed when Palestinian snipers fired at a house in Beit Lahiya in which troops had taken up positions. The soldier died in hospital.
The incursion into northern Gaza comes a week after Israeli forces entered southern Gaza in an operation aimed at winning the release of an Israeli soldier, Corp Gilad Shalit (19), who was kidnapped by Palestinian militants from a base inside Israel and is being held captive in the strip.
Corp Shalit's father, Noam, yesterday appealed to Israeli leaders, for the first time, to free Palestinian prisoners in exchange for his son. "Everything has a price," he told Army Radio. "I don't think there will be some sort of move to free Gilad without a price."
Shalit's captors have demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, but Mr Olmert has repeatedly rejected this demand.
Members of the Hamas-led government yesterday called on Palestinian security forces to join militants in trying to repulse the Israeli incursion, but with many of the policemen loyal to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, it was unclear how they would respond.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Mr Abbas, accused Israel of a "gradual . . . reoccupation of the Gaza Strip". But Israeli leaders insisted the army was not in Gaza to stay. "We have no intention of sinking in the swamp that is Gaza," said defence minister Amir Peretz.