Israel Seeks Heavier Blow to Hamas Armed Wing in Gaza

“The political wing of Hamas has absorbed a serious blow, but the military wing has not been hit as hard as we would like,” Cabinet Secretary Oved Yehezkel told reporters today. “The goal is to deal a serious blow to the terrorist infrastructure of the Hamas.”

Israel suffered its first combat death when a soldier was killed by Hamas gunfire today, the army said. Rocket attacks have killed four other Israelis since the operation began on Dec. 27. Yehezkel said “hundreds” of Hamas gunmen had died.

More than 40 rockets and mortar shells hit Israel today, down from a peak of 76 on the first day of the operation on Dec. 27. Altogether, 500 missiles have struck Israel in the past nine days, damaging dozens of homes and wounding more than 50 people, police said. As many as 3,200 rockets and mortar shells were launched at Israel from the start of 2008.

“We see that the rocket fire is less than we saw at first, but Hamas still has the means to continue to fire at Israel. The operation at this point is not expected to stop the fire, but we expect that it will be reduced,” Yehezkel said.

Last night, the government gave the go-ahead for a ground offensive as Israel broadened what started as an aerial campaign aimed at stopping the cross-border rocket attacks at its southern towns and cities.

International reaction to the land invasion was mixed, with much of it focusing on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza .

‘Intensive’ Diplomacy

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Cabinet that the “intensive diplomatic activity in recent days is aimed at deflecting the pressure for a cease-fire to allow enough time for the operation to achieve its goals,” according to an e- mailed statement from her office.

Yehezkel put the total Palestinian death toll in Gaza at as many as 470, with 12 percent being civilians. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency put civilian deaths at 25 percent. At least 35 Palestinians have been killed since the land incursion began, bringing the total to 493, the Palestinian emergency services department in Gaza said.

Humanitarian Concern

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called on the United Nations Security Council and the so-called Quartet -- the EU, U.S., Russia and the UN -- “to confront the humanitarian consequence of this aggression of the Palestinian people in Gaza .”

In Jordan, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Yemen and Turkey, thousands of protesters took to the streets, al-Arabiya television said. Others demonstrated in Istanbul, burning a dummy carrying an Israeli flag and shouting anti-Israeli slogans, CNN Turk reported.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for an immediate cease-fire contingent on guarantees to Israel that arms shipments to Gaza will be stopped and rocket attacks on Israeli towns halted.

“If there is somebody who can stop terror with a different strategy, we shall accept it,” Israeli President Shimon Peres said on ABC’s This Week. “We will not accept the idea that Hamas will continue to fire and we shall accept a cease-fire. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Aid Halted

The European Union called for the “facilitation” of aid to Gaza and Jordan’s King Abdullah said the humanitarian situation in Gaza had deteriorated to the point where “silence is unacceptable.”

Yehezkel denied there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza , where Israel has allowed in 400 trucks with aid since the conflict began. Today, borders were sealed, Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Peter Lerner said, due to the “instability” of the situation.

“Israel will not allow a humanitarian crisis to occur in Gaza ,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a meeting today with Middle East Quartet peace envoy Tony Blair. Livni said in a meeting with international aid organizations that Hamas was using Gaza hospitals as headquarters.

Launch Areas

The army says one goal of the operation is to take control of areas used to launch rockets, and Yehezkel said soldiers were patrolling many of them today. Israeli military censorship barred many of the details of the operation from being reported. Local Palestinian journalists were hindered by lack of electricity and the constant fighting.

The army said in an e-mailed statement that it “hit dozens of armed Hamas gunmen today.” Air force jets struck 15 targets, including rocket launching pads, militants and a smuggling tunnel, it said. Three senior members of Hamas were killed.

Israeli troops cut off northern Gaza , from which rockets are fired, from the rest of the Hamas-controlled territory, the daily Haaretz said, citing unidentified Palestinian sources. Gaza City was also cut off, the newspaper added.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg today visited the southern Israel city of Ashkelon that has come under rocket fire. “New Yorkers know what terrorism is all about,” Bloomberg said. “If we were threatened in New York, we would do everything in our power to protect our citizens.”

The mayor is a founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg LP.

Stocks Climb

The benchmark TA-25 Index has climbed 7.4 percent since Dec. 27 when Israel started its aerial campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index gained 6.8 percent since. Israel’s benchmark added 1 percent today.

“Stocks are more influenced by what happened in the world’s markets on Friday than what is going on in Gaza ,” said Daniel Goldstein, the head of international sales at Prisma Capital Markets Ltd. in Ramat Gan, Israel. “In reality, everything that has been going on in Gaza has been well predicted and the situation will resolve itself.”

Israeli government bonds plunged today, with yields rising the most in more than a year. “In the beginning of the week, the entire bond market will react negatively, given the uncertainty of operations in the Gaza Strip,” said Sagie Poznerson, a bond trader at Leader Capital Markets Ltd. in Tel Aviv.

The Israeli shekel gained O.9 percent after the air force operation started and traded at 3.8040 to the U.S. dollar on the last day of trading on Jan. 2.

Hamas Threats

Hamas, deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU, said yesterday it planned to send suicide bombers to Israeli cities and kidnap Israeli soldiers. One soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, has been held captive in Gaza for more than two years.

Ground fighting is likely to increase casualties on both sides, with Israel running the risk of finding itself with no easy exit.

“There’s a bigger strategic opportunity here to undermine Hamas and, by extension, all the forces throughout the region that are supported by Iran,” Mark Heller, principal research associate at the National Institute Of Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, said in a telephone interview.

“It’s a gamble though, because, if the operation goes bad, or international intervention spurred by heart-rending pictures from Gaza forces Israel to cut the operation short without achieving its aims, it will boomerang and end up undermining Israel’s deterrent credibility.”

U.S. Briefed

President George W. Bush was briefed on the Israeli offensive in Gaza yesterday and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was notified by his Israeli counterpart of the ground attack, according to spokesmen.

President-elect Barack Obama “is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza ,” Brooke Anderson, his chief national security spokeswoman, said in a statement.

Israel began the campaign to halt rocket attacks after a six-month cease-fire with Hamas expired Dec. 19. Hamas refused to renew the cease-fire because it said Israel had not eased its economic blockade of Gaza . It fired 70 rockets at Israel the day before it ended.

Barak yesterday warned the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah in south Lebanon, with which Israel fought a monthlong war in 2006, that Israel would retaliate if fired on. Military intelligence officials told the weekly Cabinet meeting that the possibility that a new front would open with Hezbollah in the north was “real,” Army Radio said.

Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Rahhal said by phone that Nasrallah has called on his militiamen “to stand ready to resist any Israeli aggression on Lebanon.”

Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist and condemns Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a stooge for conducting peace talks over the past year. Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 after a brief power-sharing arrangement with Abbas, of the rival Fatah movement. The Palestinian Authority said it was halting peace talks because of Israel’s offensive.

About 1.4 million people live in Gaza , a strip that is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) by 14 kilometers.