Thousands of Israeli troops, backed by tanks, have entered the Gaza Strip as Israel escalated its offensive into the territory on the eighth day of operations. A column of tanks entered the besieged territory through the Beit Hanoun crossing shortly after nightfall on Saturday, officials said, while the Israeli cabinet said it had also called up about 9,000 reservists.Rico says hide and watch, this is going to keep going...
al-Jazeera's Alan Fisher on the Israeli-Gaza border said heavy artillery fire, tracer fire and rockets could be heard in the area as Israeli forces moved in, along with some gunfire. Ayman Mohyeldin, al-Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza City, said that the scene in Gaza on Saturday was one of "fear and terror" as Israeli tanks moved in. He also said that there were reports of heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters in areas such as Zaytoun, near Gaza City, as several loud explosions rocked the territory.
As the offensive entered its eighth day, Palestinian medical sources said 464 Palestinians had died and more than 2,000 had been injured. Four Israelis have also been killed in rocket fire into southern Israel in the past week.
The ground offensive also followed the latest air raids in Gaza on Saturday when an Israeli strike on a northern Gaza town killed at least eleven people, including one child, who were praying in a mosque. There has been no official confirmation from either side of casualties from Saturday's ground invasion so far, although Zeina Awad, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Jerusalem, said Israeli media was reporting that several Hamas fighters had been killed at the start of the ground offensive. The Reuters news agency also said a senior Hamas official had said that its fighters had killed a number of Israeli soldiers, but neither report could be confirmed.
03 January 2009
Gaza is burning...
al-Jazeera has the story of the latest in the Israeli invasion:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment