Israel hits Gaza as rockets strike from Lebanon

Offensive presses ahead
Israel pressed ahead with its military offensive overnight even as diplomatic efforts advanced. Warplanes and helicopter gunships pounded 60 targets overnight, including a police court in Gaza City, rocket-launching sites, gunmen, weapons-production and storage facilities and about 35 weapons smuggling tunnels, the military said. Witnesses also reported an air strike on the house of a militant rocket squad leader.

Palestinians said aircraft also struck the Sheikh Radwan cemetery in Gaza City, destroying tombs and unearthing dozens of bodies. Gaza City residents, too terrified to venture out to the only graveyard in the area with space to dig new graves, have reopened the Sheikh Radwan burial ground to bury their dead. The military had no immediate comment.

Early Wednesday, Israeli tanks resumed fire at civilian areas, using shells that ignited small fires before dissolving into clouds of white smoke that hung above the city center, witnesses said. The Israeli military has not confirmed reports that it has improperly used white phosphorous shells, saying only that it uses munitions is in accordance with international law.

Four Palestinians, including at least two militants, were killed and 32 people were wounded in overnight fighting, Gaza, hospital officials said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has urged Israel to exercise "extreme caution" in using the incendiary agent, which is used to illuminate targets at night or create a smoke screen for day attacks, said Peter Herby, the head of the organization's mines-arms unit. The ICRC said it had no evidence to suggest the incendiary agent was being used improperly or illegally.

Fireballs and smoke plumes from Israeli bombing have become a common sight in the territory of 1.4 million people, who are trapped because Israel and Egypt have blockaded border crossings ever since the Islamic militant Hamas group seized power in Gaza in June 2007.

Humanitarian concerns have increased amid the onslaught although some aid is getting through to Gaza during daily three-hour lulls Israel has allowed to let in supplies.

Palestinian rocket fire has dropped significantly since the offensive began. Twenty rockets and mortar shells were fired toward Israel on Tuesday, and there was no fire early Wednesday, the military said. In the early days of the offensive, militants fired as many as 80 a day.

Hamas fighting for political capital
Hamas, which is backed by Iran, cannot hope to score a battlefield victory over the powerful Israeli military, but mere survival could earn it political capital in the Arab world as a symbol of resistance to the Jewish state. Lebanon's Hezbollah, another Iran-backed group, largely achieved that goal in its 2006 war with Israel.

Israel says it will push forward with the offensive until Hamas ends all rocket fire on southern Israel, and there are guarantees the militant group will stop smuggling weapons into Gaza through the porous Egyptian border.

Hamas has said it will only observe a cease-fire if Israel withdraws from Gaza.

Egypt is critical to both sides in any deal because much of the ongoing diplomacy focuses on an area of southern Gaza just across the Egyptian border that serves as a weapons smuggling route.

Israel wants smuggling tunnels along the border sealed and monitored as part of any deal, and has bombed suspected tunnel sites throughout its campaign.

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