Israeli Troops, Tanks Push Deep Into Gaza

GAZA BORDER -- Israeli tanks and troops pushed deep into the Gaza Strip Sunday, committing to a large-scale ground invasion that risks significant casualties on both sides, but also departs sharply from the playbook used in Israel's largely unsuccessful war against Hezbollah in Lebanon two years ago.
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The land attack, which began Saturday night, followed eight days of aerial and sea bombardment. It marks a dramatic escalation of an Israeli offensive that Palestinian hospital officials now say has left over 500 Gazans dead and over 2,200 wounded.

Israeli officials confirmed Sunday one Israeli soldier died in the weekend ground operation. Another 30 soldiers were injured, two of them critically, the military said. Four Israelis, including three civilians, have died in Gaza-launched rocket attacks on southern Israel.

Israel launched the offensive, one of the deadliest Israeli assaults on Palestinians ever, in response to intensified rocket attacks by Hamas against southern Israeli communities, following a six-month cease-fire that expired in December.

In the clearest break from a strategy it used to pursue Hezbollah militants in Lebanon in 2006, Israeli leaders have set out in the current Gaza offensive clearly defined -- and relatively modest -- expectations. Two years ago in Lebanon, Israeli officials vowed to wipe out Hezbollah and return two kidnapped soldiers, neither of which they accomplished.

This time around, government officials have said their aim is simply to reduce rocket fire and weaken Hamas. At the same time, they have spent days preparing the public for a tough fight.

"Israeli forces have gone to strike at the military infrastructure that Hamas has established and to take control of the areas from which most of the missiles have been fired," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a live, televised address Sunday.

By late Sunday, Israeli forces had cut the 25-mile-long seaside strip in half, encircling Gaza City, situated in the north with a population of half a million. Gaza has been sealed off to foreign journalists by the Israeli military. Residents reported Sunday that Israeli tanks had penetrated deep into the territory and had taken up positions on the coastal road, but hadn't yet entered large population centers.

At least 32 Gazans have died and 120 have been wounded since the ground fighting began Saturday night, according to doctors at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital.

Apache helicopters darted through the air above Gaza Sunday, firing machine guns and the occasional missile. Plumes of smoke rose into the air as artillery shells pounded into buildings and empty farmland. Despite the fierce Israeli blitz, over 30 Gaza-launched rockets and mortar rounds rained down on southern Israel on Sunday.

Gaza's residents said the offensive was far more intense than incursions Israel has launched against the territory periodically in the three years since it withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005.

"I've never seen anything like this in my entire life," said Ali al-Attar, 24 years old, a resident of the north Gaza town of Beit Lahiya close to the Israeli border. The town suffered some of the most intense fighting over the weekend. "This is the worst invasion and the heaviest fighting I have ever seen."

Mr. Attar said a platoon of Israeli soldiers rappelled out of helicopters near his home as the ground invasion began. When his cousin stepped outside to search for his younger brother, he was hit by an Israeli missile. He survived the attack, but lost both legs, he said.

With crossings into Gaza sealed shut, smuggling tunnels into the territory bombed, and Israeli soldiers besieging Gaza's largest city, residents flocked to bakeries and waited in lines for hours to stock up on bread, bracing for a lengthy battle.

The attack significantly heightens regional tensions, which had already escalated drastically amid Israel's weeklong aerial bombardment. Across the Middle East, widespread popular protests have flared against the military action--and against the governments of some moderate, Western-leaning Arab states such as Egypt, criticized for not acting to stem the violence.

The conflict is also deepening the divide between moderate Arab leaders, backed by the U.S. and Western powers, and their more extreme rivals, including Hamas and Hezbollah, both backed by U.S. nemeses Iran and Syria.

In the months before Israel's attack, the Jewish state had engaged a number of its traditional foes in a flurry of peacemaking, including the six-month cease-fire with Hamas that ended late last month. It was also indirectly negotiating with Syria over a possible peace initiative, which Damascus has now suspended because of the attacks.

Tensions have escalated inside Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak has drawn increasing criticism at home and abroad for his refusal to open Egypt's land crossing with Gaza. Riot police recently clashed with pro-Hamas protesters in Cairo and arrested dozens, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic opposition group from which Hamas draws its roots.

After a day of fiery demonstrations against the Israeli attacks in Athens, Berlin, Bogota, Istanbul, Jakarta, London, Paris and other cities over the weekend, Arab and some Western leaders, including those from the European Union and Britain, reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire.

Retired Israeli generals, meanwhile, said the swift surge deep into Gaza suggested the military was intent on proving to the Israeli public and to the broader Arab world that it had learned other lessons from the Lebanon war against Hezbollah in 2006.

During that conflict, Israel waited until the war's final days to launch a ground assault and never moved decisively against the well-armed Shiite guerrillas, who continued firing rockets at Israel throughout the war. Hezbollah emerged from that battle proclaiming victory after 34 days. Israel's top military commander was forced to resign in disgrace.

"What you're seeing today is a direct lesson of what went wrong in 2006," said retired Israeli Air Force General Isaac Ben Israel. "In Lebanon we learned that if you want to stop these rocket launchers you need to send soldiers in and take the area and control it and this is what is being done now."

Hamas has little access to re-supply routes for weapons, unlike Hezbollah. Israel also benefits from a far more expansive and effective intelligence network in Gaza than it had in southern Lebanon in 2006.

"We know almost everything in Gaza," said Gen. Ben Israel.

Israel's decision to keep the international media out of Gaza also appears to be a lesson taken from past missteps in Lebanon and elsewhere. Israeli and international journalists have been prevented from entering the territory, relying on local Gaza reporters and eyewitness accounts of the military incursion.

Several Israel campaigns in the past have been undermined by international pressure over humanitarian concerns, a factor that appears to again be playing a role on the diplomatic front this time around.

The shelling of a refugee camp in Qana, Lebanon, in 1996 put a halt to an offensive against Hezbollah there. A missile strike against a civilian shelter, also in Qana in 2006, killed 28 civilians, including 14 children. Outrage over the incident forced Israel to suspend its offensive for 48 hours.

That same summer in Gaza, an errant shell crashed into a family picnic, killing everyone at the excursion except for a seven-year old girl, who became an iconic image of Palestinian suffering after she was caught on video wailing in the strike's aftermath.

But like Israel, Hamas has also learned lessons from the Lebanon war in 2006, where Hezbollah's advanced arsenal and extensive preparations appeared to take Israeli forces by surprise. Hamas commanders have dug an extensive network of tunnels inside Gaza cities and have ordered fighters to focus efforts on kidnapping Israeli soldiers, according to a Palestinian Authority intelligence officer, stationed until recently in Gaza and who is familiar with Hamas tactics.

As Israeli launched its ground assault on Saturday night, Hamas fighters were overheard communicating on radios, urging fellow fighters to make kidnapping Israelis a priority: "Don't plan on going home tonight if you don't capture any soldiers," a Hamas fighter was overhead saying.

So far, Israel's most influential ally, the U.S., continues to back the Jewish state. President Bush has said that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas rocket fire, and he stressed that any cessation of hostilities must include guarantees of a change in Hamas's behavior.

The Israeli government notified the Bush administration of its plans to send ground forces into Gaza ahead of initiating the action Saturday, according to an official briefed on the communication.

Israel, subsequently, has continued to provide Washington with updates on its military operations. Mr. Barak contacted U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Saturday, according to the official, and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The international community's response to the Gaza situation is significantly complicated by the political transition in Washington, say current and former Western diplomats. The Bush administration has refused to launch any major diplomatic initiative to calm Middle East tensions. President-elect Barack Obama, meanwhile, has declined to weigh into the Gaza crisis, sticking to a line that "there's only one president at a time."

The United Nations Security Council held emergency consultations Saturday night to address the escalation of violence, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged an immediate halt to Israel's ground operation. Arab nations demanded that the Security Council call for an immediate cease-fire.

But the U.S. late Saturday blocked approval of a Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel. U.S. officials said there was little chance Hamas would adhere to the statement, based on the group's earlier response to such calls for a ceasefire.

Throughout the weeklong aerial and sea bombardment, Hamas has kept up a defiant posture, and its continued ability to fire rockets into Israel suggested much of its military capability remained unimpaired. But Sunday, there were some signs that Hamas' leadership may be moderating its stance.

Mohammed Nazzal, a member of the group's politburo, told pan-Arab television Al-Arabiya that Hamas was ready to negotiate without conditions with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas ousted Mr. Abbas's rival Fatah Party from power in Gaza in a bloody sweep of the territory in 2007.

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