Tel Aviv - Israeli ground troops edged closer to densely- populated areas of Gaza Sunday morning, as caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the operation against Hamas would continue since Israel was close to achieving its aims.
Smoke rises following an Israeli missile strike as some birds are seen in the sky in the east of Gaza City, Gaza Strip on 11 January 2009. Israel's ongoing attacks on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip have claimed almost 900 lives. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was more explicit, telling a joint news conference with visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeyer that the offensive would continue since it was not a one- time battle that would end with an agreement.
There would, she said, be no agreement on ending Israel's Gaza offensive if it meant a dialogue with Hamas, which Israel considers a terrorist organization and which it, along with other Western countries, boycotts because of the Islamist group's refusal to recognize the Jewish state's right to exist.
The army's move into Sheikh Ajleen, on the outskirts of Gaza City, sparked fierce firefights with local gunmen, with 12 reported dead by the time the tanks and infantry pulled back to the former Israeli settlement of Netzariim, south of Gaza City.
Israel has so far not sent troops into the teeming neighbourhoods and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, but Israeli media reports say that the third stage of the Israeli ground operation in the Strip would see the troops forced to take on gunmen inside the Strip's main cities and camps.
Chief military spokesman, Brigadier Avi Benayahu, told a television interview Sunday night that the army was now using reserve troops in the fighting. He refused, however, to say whether this indicated that the third stage of the operation had begun, or was imminent.
Olmert told ministers at the start of Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting that while Israel was nearing the goals it had set for itself, 'further patience, determination and effort' were necessary to reach 'those goals in a way that will change the security reality in the south, so that our citizens will be able to feel long-term security and stability.'
The premier also criticized the United Nations resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, saying that 'no decision, present or future, will deny us our basic right to defend the residents of Israel.'
Hamas also rejected a ceasefire, with the group's leaders in Damascus saying in a statement Saturday that a truce 'would not help the Palestinian cause or Palestinian resistance.'
The head of Israel's military intelligence, Major-General Amos Yadlin, told the cabinet that Israel believed Hamas in the Gaza Strip had been badly hurt by the Israeli offensive, but was still capable of fighting on.
He said that while the Hamas leadership in Damascus was calling for continued fighting, the organization's local leadership in the Gaza Strip wanted a compromise that would end the assault.
Livni, in her news conference, emphasized that Israel sees it as crucial that Hamas be prevented from rearming in the future.
Steinmeyer, however, said that preventing arms from being smuggled into Gaza from the Sinai peninsula could not be achieved by the deployment of an international force on the Egyptian side of the border.
Hamas, in its statement Saturday rejecting the ceasefire, also rejected 'any security arrangements that will weaken our resistance and our right to fight against the occupation.'
Israel launched its Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on December 27, after massive rocket barrages from the salient on southern Israeli towns and villages.
The campaign kicked off with a week of incessant air attacks, and last Saturday night ground forces were ordered into the salient, where they have clashed with militants, while the Israel Air Force has continued bombing targets.
The air force attacked 60 targets, a military spokesman said Sunday night, including 20 smuggling tunnels, 15 squads of gunmen and weapons depots.
Hamas militants in the Strip continued launching rockets and mortars at southern Israel, with at least 20 landing by Sunday night, including four long-range Grad missiles, one of which hit an empty kindergarten in the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
Palestinian medical officials said Sunday afternoon that the death toll on the 16th day of the Israeli offensive stood at at least 901 killed and 3,500 wounded. Some 38 people were killed in the Israeli attacks Sunday, the officials said.
Israel has lost 9 soldiers since the start of its ground offensive a week ago. Another soldier died in one of the rocket barrages from the Strip, as did three civilians.
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