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Israel threatens to widen Gaza assault

Ground offensive intensifies; death toll hits 285 amid looming humanitarian crisis

AFP, Cara City
Israel yesterday warned it could broaden a Gaza ground assault aimed at smashing Hamas's network of cross-border tunnels, as it intensified an operation that has so far killed 285 Palestinians.
With diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire gathering pace, US President Barack Obama said he had telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to voice concerns about the crisis.
And Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reached out for French help to lobby Hamas allies Qatar and Turkey to pressure the Islamists into accepting a truce during talks in Cairo with Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
In the face of Israel's land, sea and air offensive that has sent terrified civilians running for cover, the Islamist movement Hamas remained defiant and warned the Jewish state it would "drown in the swamp of Gaza". As Gaza residents spoke of a night of terror, with gunbattles in the south and all-night shelling in the north, Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to ready for "the possibility of a significant broadening of the ground activity."
Immediately afterwards, he convened his security cabinet to discuss plans for a possible expansion of the campaign, which began on July 8 with the aim of stamping out cross-border rocket fire.
The ground operation, which began in the Gaza periphery at around 2000 GMT on Thursday, sent thousands of people fleeing west to escape the fighting, with a UN agency saying the numbers of displaced had almost doubled overnight.
As Israeli forces pressed a ground operation in Gaza yesterday, many Egyptians and foreigners fled to Egypt through the Rafah crossing, escaping what some said was "sure death" in the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli boots on the ground proved the last straw for many Egyptians and foreigners, who had stayed on in Gaza during 10 days of blistering Israeli air strikes.
"1 did not want to leave my house, but last night was very difficult with the ground operation," said Sohair Massoud, an Egyptian mother of four, as she crossed into Egypt from Gaza through Rafah.
Massoud, who is married to a Palestinian, said Israeli forces struck her neighbourhood in the Palestinian side of Rafah with artillery fire and air strikes.
Escaping what she said was "sure death", she decided to flee to Egypt.
However, even the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing was tense on Friday, with drones flying overhead and Egyptian army tanks along with ambulances and taxis lined up to assist families and wounded Palestinians as they arrived through the crossing.
A security official said the Egyptian authorities were allowing Egyptians and foreign nationals to enter "on humanitarian grounds" after confirming their identities. Palestinians are not permitted through the crossing except in special circumstances.
"The number of people coming to UNRWA seeking sanctuary from the fighting in Gaza has nearly doubled today. It has risen from 22,000 to over 40,000," said Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, saying they were staying in 34 of the agency's schools.
By mid-morning Friday, the road between Gaza City and Khan Yunis was deserted with only a single minibus, packed with passengers, careering south, its windows covered with makeshift white flags, an AFP correspondent said.
During Friday prayers, imams at Gaza's 1,400 mosques relayed a single message to the faithful: "Be patient and strong, victory will come."
But it was little comfort for those on the ground with hospitals overwhelmed by a flood of patients.
“The situation is very, very difficult, " said doctor Kamel Zaqzuq at
Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis
"This is much, much more difficult than the last war," he said, referring to the previous major conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in November 2012.
With food supplies running desperately low, the World Food Programme said it had already distributed emergency food rations and food vouchers to more than 20,000 displaced people since the conflict erupted on July 8.
But with the ground operation, it was gearing up for a huge increase in the coming days, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told reporters in Geneva.
"In the next few days, WFP hopes to reach 85,000 people with food distributions," she said.
Gaza was also struggling with a 70 percent power outage after electricity lines from Israel were damaged, officials said.
Since midnight, 39 people have been killed across Gaza by Israeli fire, including six teenagers and a five-month-old baby, raising to 280 the total number of Palestinians killed in the past 11 days.
An Israeli civilian and a soldier have also been killed.
Israel has said the aim of the ground operation is to destroy Hamas's network of tunnels which are used for cross-border attacks on southern Israel.
"It is not possible to deal with tunnels only from the air, so our soldiers are also doing that on the ground," Netanyahu said, although he admitted there was "no guarantee of 100 percent success."