HAMAS leader Mahmoud Zahar has warned that Jewish children are now legitimate targets, in a bloodcurdling precursor to tanks rolling into the Islamic militant stronghold of Khan Younis yesterday.
Zahar's threat of retaliation, in his first comments since the Israeli campaign began 11 days ago, came before tanks, firing cannons and machineguns and supported by helicopter gunships, moved into the city in the southern Gaza Strip.
The pre-dawn operation to open a third front came a day after troops andHamas militants fought pitched battles in Gaza City, in the north - where four Israelis were killed by tankfire in two friendly-fire cases, and on the edges of the Deir al-Balah and Bureij refugee camps in the centre.
"They have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine," said Zahar, in a video recorded from his hiding place in Syria and broadcast on Hamas's al-Aqsa television. "They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people."
The warning, delivered late on Monday, suggested a new round of suicide bombings inside and even outside Israel to avenge the deaths of at least 159 Palestinian children, killed since the campaign to take out Hamas rocket teams began with airstrikes on December 27. Defence Minister Ehud Barak said last night that the strip had been cut in half and that Gaza City had been surrounded.
The death toll on both sides rose as diplomatic initiatives failed to make progress on halting the fighting in the enclave of 1.5million people.
The incursion into Khan Younis's eastern district of Abassan al-Kabira was the first time Israeli ground forces had entered the city since they poured into the territory on Saturday night. The armoured force was met in Khan Younis by return fire from Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. Artillery and airstrikes hit two UN schools in Khan Younis and Gaza City, one crowded with refugees, killing at least five people - bringing the Palestinian death toll since the campaign began to more than 580, of which the UN says a quarter are civilians.
In other pre-dawn clashes yesterday, fighting raged in the north around Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya, near Gaza City. In the eastern Gaza City district of Zeitun, a three-storey house belonging to a Hamas member with 30 people inside was destroyed by an airstrike. At least 12 people - seven of them children - were killed. They were all related.
Despite the relentless air, ground and naval assault on their stronghold launched to stop rockets, a defiant Hamas continued to fire into Israel.
One projectile travelled 45km, the deepest yet inside the Jewish state, lightly wounding a baby. Three others landed elsewhere without causing injuries.Israel yesterday rejected separate ceasefire initiatives from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the European Union, saying the 11-day offensive in Gaza was an act of self-defence that would end only when Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel.
Before a dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mr Sarkozy said: "We in Europe want a ceasefire as quickly as possible, and that everyone understands that time is running against peace. The guns must fallsilent."
Mr Olmert told Mr Sarkozy: "The results of the operation must be ... that Hamas must not only stop firing but must no longer be able to fire. We cannot accept a compromise that will allow Hamas to fire in two months against Israeli towns."
President Shimon Peres was more blunt to the EU delegation. "Europe must open its eyes," he said. "We are not in the business of public relations or improving our image. We are fighting against terror and we have every right to defend our citizens."
The heaviest fighting so far occurred as Israeli troops clashed with Hamas fighters in the Shejaiya district of Gaza City.
Palestinian medical officials say at least 110 people have died since the ground assault began, while Israel says it has killed 130 Hamas fighters.
The Israeli army said three soldiers from the elite Golani Brigade were killed and 24 wounded in northern Gaza when their position was accidentally hit by Israeli tank fire. The brigade commander, Colonel Avi Peled, was lightly injured. The army said a paratroop officer was killed in northern Gaza, indicating he may have been killed by friendly fire.
"The details of the event are still being investigated; however, it is suspected that a tank shell was mistakenly fired at the force," it said in a statement.
The death brought to five the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the army poured ground troops into the Hamas stronghold on Saturday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said people were dying because ambulances could not reach them amid the fighting.
A foreign doctor at a Gaza hospital, Mads Gilbert, challenged Israel's claim that Hamas fighters were being targeted, saying that by his count 801 children had been injured or killed. Dr Gilbert told the BBC last night: "The numbers are contradictory to everything Israel says. This is the worst man-made disaster for the time I can think (of)."
Mr Sarkozy had a blunt message for both sides: Israel could not allow the humanitarian situation to go on and Hamas's firing of rockets on civilians in southern Israel was "unforgiveable".
Additional reporting: AFP
