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by Our Foreign Desk
ISRAELI troops drove deeply into Gaza today, firing volleys of shells, wiping out dozens of Palestinians and forcing up to 40,000 civilians to leave home.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had told his military to “be ready for the possibility of a significant expansion of the ground operation.”
His government describes its goals as stopping rocket attacks, destroying a network of Hamas tunnels into Israel and weakening Hamas militarily.
Israel claims to go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and blames them on Hamas, accusing it of firing from within residential neighbourhoods and using its civilians as human shields.
However, the invaders’ reliance on tank rounds being fired into housing areas guaranteed a steady increase in the number of dead non-combatants.
“We need to go in and finish the job. We need to eliminate every terrorist. They have no immunity,” said Cabinet minister Uri Ariel from the Jewish Home party.
But Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: “The ground offensive does not scare us and we pledge to drown the occupation army in Gaza mud.”
Just one of Israel’s soldiers has died since its forces crossed the border, while 274 Palestinians lay dead — a fifth of them children.
Egypt continued efforts yesterday to get the Palestinian factions to agree to its truce proposal, inviting representatives to Cairo.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attended, saying that, while the Israeli ground offensive had complicated matters, he had met the Islamic Jihad leadership and “found a kind of acceptance of this initiative and readiness to convince others to accept it.”
Islamic Jihad, which is smaller than Hamas, claims to be open to the proposal but not in its current form.
Chile’s government announced its suspension this week of free trade agreement negotiations with Israel.
Santiago is considering withdrawal of its ambassador in protest at the Israeli military campaign against Palestinian civilians.
It will also seek condemnation of Israel by the UN security council.
The council held an emergency debate on the Gaza conflict last night after Jordan requested a meeting, but there was no development before the Morning Star went to press.
