All-out assault on Gaza looms as 54 die in Israeli incursion

The Israeli incursion of at least a mile into Gaza triggered some of the fiercest fighting in months. Many Gazans fear it could be a lethal foretaste of a threatened wholesale invasion to curb rocket and mortar attacks – 48 of which were launched by militants yesterday, with only partial success. The main impact of the Israeli operation, in which another seven IDF soldiers were hurt, was in the town of Jabalya, where a rapidly mounting death toll brought the estimated total of Palestinians killed in Gaza since Wednesday to 68.

About half of those who died yesterday were said by Palestinian observers to have been civilians. Palestinian medics said that another 155 people had been injured, including nine who were in a critical condition. Six Israelis were wounded in longer-range Grad rocket fire that reached as far north as Ashkelon, 11 miles from Gaza. The range and power of the Grad rockets has led to pressure on the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to launch a full-scale military operation.

Yesterday's carnage will overshadow a visit this week by the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who is seeking to breathe new life into a negotiating process that was already faltering badly. Palestinian negotiators loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas indicated that the talks would be broken off anyway because of the Israeli operation.

The build-up began in earnest on Wednesday, two days after a 10-year-old Israeli boy in the hard-pressed border town of Sderot was injured by a home-made Qassam rocket. On Wednesday morning, an Israeli air strike killed five Hamas militants in Khan Yunis and the Islamic faction launched a barrage of more than 40 rockets into Israeli border communities, killing a 47-year-old mature student.

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