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No let-up in Gaza offensives

50 more killed as Israel continues to pound Hamas targets

AFP, AP, Gaza City
Israeli troops battled Hamas fighters in Gaza's main city for the first time yesterday while the government fended off worldwide calls for a ceasefire. Fifty died in a day ofclashes.
Amid raging combat in Gaza City, and as the Palestinian death toll rose over 550 including 90 children, French and Russian presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev both demanded a halt to the conflict. But Israeli ministers said the offensive would go on.
Large explosions and heavy gunfire rocked
the Shejaiya neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City as night fell. Israeli military sources confirmed there were heavy clashes.
Flares lit up the skies over the blacked-out neighbourhood. Assault helicopters were also seen.
Hamas said its fighters had unleashed missiles against seven tanks in the district. Its Islamic Jihad allies said several of its members were killed in the fighting.
At least 12 children were among 50 new bodies taken to Gaza hospitals after air missile
SEE PAGE 15 COL 7
FROM PAGE 1 and tank attacks yesterday, medics said.
Israeli warplanes carried out Intensive raids on Hamas targets yesterday as ground troops surrounded Gaza's main city.
The senior Hamas leader in Gaza promised "victory is coming" for the Islamist group, but Israel's defence minister said "we have hit Hamas hard" while insisting the operation to halt Hamas rocket attacks would continue.
Israel, under pressure over the mounting toll on civilians, agreed to let food and fuel into Gaza but about 200 trucks were stuck at the border as the military said no one turned up to receive the supplies.
But Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni yesterday rejected calls by visiting EU diplomats for an immediate truce to the war in Gaza, saying Israel was aiming to change the "equation in this region."
"We are fighting with terror and we are not reaching an agreement with terror," she said, in reference to the Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza.
Thousands of ground troops intensified their move into the Palestinian enclave of 1.5 million people, battling Hamas fighters in the east of the territory as they tightened their grip around Gaza City.
Israeli jets carried out more than 30 airstrikes. The military said they hit a mosque in the northern town of Jabaliya "where arms were being stored, as well as houses containing arms caches and vehicles that were transporting rocket launchers and armed men."
Naval ships off the coast also bombarded targets to help the ground force advance launched on Saturday night
More than 550 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched Operation Cast Lead on December 27 with about 2,700wounded.
Israel says dozens of Hamas fighters have been killed while one Israeli soldier has been reported dead and 55 wounded since Saturday.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the offensive would continue until Israel achieved "peace and tranquillity" for residents -of southern Israel. Militants, defying the attacks, fired more than twe dozen rockets by midday, and Hamas' strongman urged Palestinians to "crush" the invading Israeli forces and target Israeli civilians.
"Gaza City is partially surrounded," Barak told deputies. "We have hit Hamas hard, bui we have not yet reached all the goals that we have set for ourselves and the operation continues," he said.
"We are doing everything that a state must do to protect its citizens," he said. "We want that the attacks against our citizens and our soldiers stop."
Three civilians and one soldier have been killed bj rockets fired from Gaza since Israel's operation started. More than 10 rocket and missile attacks were reported yesterday
Hamas remained defiant "Victory is coming, God willing," the movement's senioi leader in Gaza, Mahmud Zahaj said in a television address.
Israel faces intense international pressure to agree a ceasefire and ease the suffering of the Gaza population which has no power or water supplies and endures a daily struggle to get food, according to aid agencies.
The European Union and Russia are part of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet, along with the United Nations and the United States.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday he would be working with key players on ways to end the violence.
The Israeli offensive has sparked spiralling anger in the Muslim world and protests across the globe.