ISRAEL sent reinforcements to the Gaza border early today to intensify attacks on militants firing rockets into Israeli towns and villages after the biggest incursion and air strikes since its withdrawal in 2005 left 52 Palestinians dead.

The reinforcements set the stage for a possible reoccupation of parts of Gaza. Last night the Israeli air force struck a truck carrying 160 Palestinian rockets, part of the extensive increase in weaponry now in play.

Two Israeli soldiers died in yesterday's fighting. The Palestinian toll was reported to have included at least 29 civilians, with several children among them. Since the violence flared up on Wednesday, almost 90 Palestinians have died.

Yesterday’s strikes, involving several hundred ground troops from the Givati infantry regiment, fixed wing aircraft, tanks and helicopters, came as Israel pondered a large-scale incursion into Gaza in the coming days with the aim of curbing daily rocket attacks.

Blockade drains life from Gaza

The movement of goods into Gaza had been intermittent at best since Hamas won Palestinian elections early last year

Multimedia

• Pictures: Johnston is released

• Video: unarmed protester confronts gunman in Gaza

• Pictures: life in Gaza

Background

• Q&A: Hamas and Gaza

• 97 days and counting for BBC's man in Gaza

• Now war is with the enemy within

• The little girl trapped by a quirk of war

Related Links

• Israel threatens 'holocaust' in Gaza

• Five children killed in Israeli airstrikes

• Al-Qaeda 'infiltrates Gaza with Hamas help'

The Israeli strategy is to try to force the militants further back from the border with Israel so that their rockets cannot continue to hit their targets.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, himself a sworn enemy of Gaza's Hamas Islamist rulers, asked for an urgent meeting of the United Nations security council. He appealed for Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, to end the "massacres". Last night security council members were due to consider the crisis.

The Israeli deputy defence minister, Matan Vilani, had warned that the Palestinians were bringing a catastrophe on themselves if they continued to target Ashkelon, a large city by Israeli standards with a population of 120,000. Through an apparent mistranslation, Palestinians were told the Israelis were threatening to visit a "holocaust" on them.

More than 40 rockets and mortar rounds were fired into Israel yesterday, including seven Iranian-made Katyusha rockets, which are believed to have been smuggled into Gaza when its southern border with Egypt was breached last month. They are more powerful and accurate than the locally produced Kassam rockets. Three Israeli civilians were injured by rocket fire yesterday and one was killed earlier in the week.

Palestinian officials said Israeli forces advanced yesterday in fierce fighting towards the Gazan towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalya in the deepest incursion for several months. Witnesses also claimed that Israeli aircraft had attacked the office of the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, in Gaza City, though no casualties were reported.

"Uncle, I don't want to die I want my dad," a toddler screamed as doctors tried to treat burns all over her body in Gaza's main Shifa hospital. The girl was injured in a house which the Israelis said had been used to make and store weapons. In another incident a mother died as she prepared food for her children.

In Beit Hanoun, a 13-month-old girl, Malak Karfaneh, was killed by shrapnel. Hamas, the militant Islamic party that controls Gaza, blamed Israel, but residents said a militant’s rocket fell short and landed beside the baby’s home.

David Baker, a spokesman for the Israeli government, said it was “compelled to continue to take these defensive measures”. Militants “hide behind their own civilians, using them as human shields, while actively targeting Israeli population centres,” he added. “They bear the responsibility for the results.”

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who is trying to negotiate a peace deal with Israel, condemned the mounting death toll. “We tell the world, watch and judge what’s happening, and judge who is committing the international terrorism,” he said. He is now under pressure to suspend the talks.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, will be briefed on Israeli plans for a large-scale ground attack on Gaza, involving up to 20,000 men, when she visits later this week.

Some officials argue that the only solution to the problem of the rocket attacks from Gaza is to eliminate the Hamas leadership by flooding Gaza with troops. “A ground attack on Gaza is imminent and Hamas will pay the price for their attacks,” Ehud Barak, the hawkish defence minister, said last week.

Further bloodshed could derail the American-brokered peace talks between Israel and Palestine. “The Annapolis show was a waste of time,” said a Palestinian source, referring to the talks held at the Maryland naval base last year.

Further bloodshed could derail the US-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Fears of a full-scale Israeli onslaught prompted Hamas to send messages to Israel calling for a ceasefire. Israel refused the offer. “A ceasefire is unacceptable,” a security source said. “It will just give them breathing space.”

A large-scale incursion could lead to heavy Israeli casualties. “Once we go in,” a military source said, “we will face resistance mainly in the form of roadside bombs and suicide bombings. At the same time Hamas will move underground.”

Rice will be told on her visit that little progress has been made in negotiations with the Palestinians. According to Israeli sources, two military plans will be outlined to her: either of them “will mean bloodshed for Israelis and Palestinians”, a defence source said.

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