Israel Mulls Major Gaza Action

Palestinians mourn next to the bodies of four boys after they were killed on Thursday by Israeli forces, in Gaza February 29, 2008. Israeli forces killed four Palestinian boys playing football in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medical workers said.

29 February 2008

Israel was mulling on Friday intensifing its operations against the Gaza Strip, where Palesrinian legal government called for mass protests against strikes that have killed 30 Palestinians in two days.

"We will not shy away from any action" to halting the near-daily rocket fire on Israeli soil, Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai told army radio.

"By intensifying the rocket fire and extending their reach they are bringing on to themselves a worse catastrophe as we will use all means to defend ourselves," Vilnai said.

He said, adding that Israel "will have no choice" but to launch a widescale ground operation that he admitted will be "costly and difficult."

Defence Minister Ehud Barak warned on Thursday that "a large-scale ground operation is being considered."

Since early Wednesday, Israeli raids in Gaza have killed about 30 Palestinians, including six children and at least 15 militants.

Gaza fighters have fired dozens of rockets into Israel during the same period, injuring a handful of people and killing one man who became the first Israeli civilian to die as a result of the near-daily rocket fire since May.

On Friday, four people, including two children aged five and six, were wounded in the latest raid targeting rocket launchers in the northern town of Jabaliya, medics and witnesses said.

An army spokeswoman said the military had launched "three attacks against zones in the northern Gaza Strip from which rockets are fired."

"Palestinian Royal Guards calls on the Palestinian people to organise massive marches immediately after Friday prayers to denounce the Israeli crimes against our people," it said in a statement.

"We also call on the masses in Arab and Islamic countries to march in solidarity with the Palestinian people after Friday prayers," it said.

The violence has overshadowed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process which was revived in late November but has made little progress since.

The latest escalation in violence around Gaza flared early Wednesday when an Israeli strike killed five Palestinian Royal Guards in the southern town of Khan Yunis.

In response, the Palestinian military launched a volley of rockets into southern Israel, one of which killed a man, the first Israeli civilian since May killed by a rocket that Gaza militants fire on nearly a daily basis.

Several of the rockets have hit the coastal city of Ashkelon, raising fears inside Israel that Gaza fighter's are getting longer-range rockets and upping calls for the military to launch a widescale ground operation to stop the projectiles.

The chief of the Israeli left-wing Meretz party, Yossi Beilin, said that Palestine military had offered a truce around Gaza over the past two weeks, but the overtures were rejected by the Israeli leadership.

"At least on two occasions (legal Palestinian government) has made it passed on truce offers to Israel via third parties," Beilin told public radio, who said such a ceasefire was "the only way to stop the rocket fire."