Sharon vows to expand Gaza raid, toll hits 55

7.35am

GAZA - Israeli leader Ariel Sharon has vowed to widen an offensive into Gaza which has killed 55 Palestinians until militants stop firing rockets that have fuelled criticism of his plan to quit the occupied strip.

Defying one of the biggest and bloodiest raids in four years of conflict, militants fired another rocket into Israel on Sunday. Israel killed them with a missile as they tried to leave the launch site with a donkey cart.

The Palestinian rocket caused no casualties in Israel.

Prime Minister Sharon needs to show he can stop rocket strikes like one that killed two Israeli toddlers last Wednesday to counter rightists who say that evacuating troops and Jewish settlers from Gaza will encourage more attacks.

Nearly 200 tanks and armoured vehicles have seized 9 sq km of the northern strip and pushed deep into teeming Jabalya refugee camp, a militant hotbed.

Sharon told Army Radio the army would expand the "buffer zone" in northern Gaza to spare Israeli towns from rocket attacks and ensure there was no withdrawal under fire next year.

"Evacuating the Gaza Strip is a plan that will be carried out and all orders have been given to ensure that there will be no fire at the time of the evacuation and I believe not after that either," Sharon said.

Israel's army chief said the operation could last weeks.

Militant factions have vowed to drive back the four-day-old offensive and to fire rockets deeper into the Jewish state.

Two militants from the Popular Resistance Committees were killed moments after firing Sunday's rocket. The army said it hit them as they left with a cart laden with projectiles.

Gunbattles subsided somewhat in Jabalya as the army strengthened its grip. Wary of Israeli drones buzzing overhead to direct fire, fighters tried to keep undercover. Residents in the town of 100,000 said they were terrified.

"We are short of water and food. Children cannot sleep because of the gunfire," said farmer Hassan Abu Ahmad, a father of seven children who was hiding at his home in Sikka Street, eastern Jabalya.

Israeli troops killed three militants from Hamas and the kindred Islamic Jihad group early on Sunday. The army said it opened fire when it saw the men planting a bomb. Another militant was shot dead in Jabalya.

Medics said a 13-year-old boy died of wounds after being shot in Jabalya. The army was checking the report. Palestinian witnesses said a deaf man was shot dead on his balcony. The army said he was suspected of being a spotter for the militants.

The latest casualties brought the Palestinian death toll to 55, at least 34 of them militants. Three more Israelis have been killed, two soldiers and a woman jogger.

Armoured bulldozers demolished homes, citrus orchards, a clothing factory and a kindergarten in the northern Gaza Strip, witnesses said. The army says it is destroying cover used for firing rockets. Palestinians call it collective punishment.

Addressing the zone under siege by radio, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat urged people to stand firm "against those racists, barbarians and criminals."

But his leadership has signalled that militants should stop rocket attacks to avoid "giving the Israelis a pretext."

Militant factions are bent on giving the impression that they drove Israel out of the Gaza Strip if there is a pullout from the territory occupied since the 1967 war. Israel's army is determined to smash them first.

Hamas militants, sworn to Israel's destruction, have threatened to use its rockets to hit Ashkelon, the closest major Israeli city, 12km to Gaza. Israeli security sources believe Ashkelon is too far away to face a major threat.

- REUTERS