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 Israel launched a ground offensive on Thursday after 10 days of
air and naval barrages.
The military said its engineers were concentrating on a buffer-zone
2.5 km (1.5 mile) wide and were looking to destroy tunnels and
concealed rocket launch pads dug by Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamists
after the last big flare-up of violence in 2012.
Hamas said its fighters used one such tunnel to slip into Israel on
Saturday, inflicting casualties. The Israeli military confirmed the
incident near central Gaza, saying it killed one militant, repelled
the rest, and that two soldiers were wounded.
Palestinian militants also fired at least 18 rockets into Israel on
Saturday, killing a man and wounding four people, including two
children, in the southern town of Dimona, police said.
Gaza officials said that at least 318 Palestinians, including 70
children, have been killed in the 12-day conflict. On Israel's side,
a soldier and two civilians have been killed.
Hostilities had escalated following the killing last month of three
Jewish seminary students that Israel blames on Hamas. Hamas neither
confirmed nor denied involvement. The apparent revenge murder of a
Palestinian youth in Jerusalem, for which Israel charged three Jews,
further fueled tensions.
Military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, said 13
tunnels, at least one of them 30 meters (90 feet) deep, and 95
rocket launchers were found and destroyed in the Gaza sweep.
Searches were continuing in what he described as an open-ended
mission that had "severely impeded Hamas capabilities".
Responding to a Reuters inquiry, the military acknowledged that
there was a de facto buffer zone in eastern Gaza but said other
Israeli operations continued. Brigadier-General Moti Almoz, chief
military spokesman, signaled that the forces conducting the
unearthing mission would not stay permanently.
"I can't promise that when we leave the territory we will have
exposed all of the tunnels," he told Israel's Army Radio.
CASUALTIES
Gaza medical officials said attacks overnight from Israel killed 26
Palestinians, mostly civilians, in the northern towns of Beit Hanoun
and Beit Lahiya and in Khan Younis in the south.
The military had no immediate word on the Beit Lahiya and Khan
Younis incidents, though it confirmed carrying out 37 strikes. It
said troops raiding a house in Beit Lahiya killed a gunman after he
wounded three soldiers. The Palestinian faction PRC said it ambushed
the Israeli troops in Beit Lahiya.
Israel says more than 1,500 rockets have been fired at its towns and
cities during this month's fighting. The death toll has been kept
low due to the rockets' inaccuracy, an extensive Israeli network of
air raid sirens and shelters and its anti-missile shield Iron Dome's
90 percent success rate.
NO CEASEFIRE
The escalation of hostilities, and its toll on Gaza's 1.8 million
Palestinians as well as on Israelis jarred by rockets that have
reached Tel Aviv and beyond, have spurred so-far fruitless truce
bids by Western powers and regional go-betweens.
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"There will be no truce without an end to the war that the
Occupation (Israel) began, a lifting of the blockade and a halt to
all violations and killings in Gaza and the West Bank," Hamas
spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. Egypt has no plans to revise its
ceasefire proposal, which Hamas has rejected, Cairo's foreign
minister said on Saturday.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon planned to travel to the Israel
and the Palestinian territories this weekend. At an emergency
session of the U.N. Security Council on Friday, U.N. political
affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman condemned the rockets from Gaza but
voiced alarm at "Israel's heavy response".
The United Nations said that more than 50,000 Palestinians have
taken refuge from the Israeli attacks in its Gaza shelters.
Palestinian officials said 90 percent of Gaza's electricity had been
cut by Israel. The Israeli energy ministry had no immediate
response. On Sunday, it said a Palestinian rocket had crippled a
power line to Gaza from Israel and it would not endanger engineers
by sending them to conduct repairs.
Hamas, Gaza's dominant Islamist group, refuses to hold fire unless
embargoes by Israel and neighboring Egypt are eased and other
demands are met. The Israelis say they are ready to step up their
Gaza assault, though they do not aim to topple Hamas.
U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who entered a
power-share deal with his Islamist rivals in April, has been
shuttling between Egypt and Turkey in search of a breakthrough.
Turkey serving as an intermediary looked unlikely, however, after
Israel pared down its diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul
this week following sometimes violent pro-Palestinian street
protests and what it deemed "incitement" against its by the
Islamist-rooted Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
On Saturday, the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem advised Israelis to
avoid "non-essential" travel to former ally Turkey.
France has also mooted mediation by Qatar, which has helped fund
Gaza projects in the past, but Israel is cool to the idea.
The Israelis prefer Egyptian intercession. Yet with Egypt having
cracked down on its Muslim Brotherhood - Hamas's ideological kind -
and viewing Hamas as a security threat, Cairo's clout with the
Palestinian Islamists is in doubt.
(Editing by Louise Ireland)
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