Israeli aircraft struck northern and southern Gaza yesterday as thousands of Israeli troops, backed by warplanes and tanks, forged into the coastal strip in an operation meant to pummel Palestinian militants into releasing an Israeli soldier.
The ground offensive was Israel's first since pulling all of its soldiers and settlers out of Gaza over the summer, and Palestinians braced for a major strike, either holing up at home or stocking up on supplies, depending how close they were to the warfare.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel wouldn't balk at "extreme action" to bring the soldier home, but had no intention of reoccupying Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas deplored the incursion as a "crime against humanity."
PHOTO: AP
No casualties were reported.
Warplanes launched missiles at open fields in northern and southern Gaza in a show of force meant to intimidate militants, the military said. A rocket-making factory in southern Gaza was also attacked.
Meanwhile, concerns about the fate of a missing West Bank settler grew after militants who purport to hold him displayed what they said was a copy of his ID card.
Israeli tanks and soldiers began taking up positions east of Rafah overnight under cover of tank shells, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said.
Captain Jacob Dallal, a military spokesman, said yesterday that troops moved 2km inside the coastal strip.
Witnesses reported heavy artillery shelling near the long-closed Gaza airport outside of Rafah, just over the border with Israel. In Rafah, a shack where militants produced and stored rockets was on fire after Israel attacked it, witnesses said.
Warplanes, meanwhile, flew low over the strip, rocking it with sonic booms and shattering windows. And troops in Israel backed up the assault, firing artillery into Gaza.
Residents of northern Gaza, preparing for what they feared could be a long military operation, stocked up on food, batteries for radios and candles.
The normally bustling streets in southern Gaza, where the invasion was launched, were eerily deserted, with people taking refuge inside their homes.
The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt -- Gaza's main link to the outside world -- has been closed since Sunday's attack on the Israeli military post.
Israeli troops, backed by tanks, took over the Gaza airport. Dozens of people living near the airport left their homes, seeking sanctuary in nearby Rafah.
At the start of the invasion, Israeli warplanes fired at least nine missiles at Gaza's only power station, cutting electricity to 65 percent of the Gaza Strip, engineers said. The attack raised the specter of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, because water pumps there are powered by electricity.
Three bridges were also taken out, cutting Gaza in two, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli military said in a statement that three bridges were attacked "to impair the ability of the terrorists to transfer the kidnapped soldier," 19-year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit.
"We won't hesitate to carry out extreme action to bring Gilad back to his family," Olmert said. "All the military activity that started overnight will continue in the coming days."
"We do not intend to reoccupy Gaza. We do not intend to stay there," he added.
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