| CNN | - |
Gaza
City (CNN) -- Deadly clashes broke out after Israeli tanks drove into
Gaza and launched a ground operation that escalates the conflict with
Hamas.
Israeli tanks roll into Gaza; Hamas warns of 'heavy price'
updated 1:41 AM EDT, Fri July 18, 2014
Source: CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Israeli soldier killed in Gaza during the offensive, military says
- Israel says "some 14 terrorists" killed; civilian casualties unclear
- Jordan calls for urgent meeting of U.N. Security Council
- The Gaza conflict has killed more than 200 people, mostly civilians
The incursion Thursday
night follows 10 days of Israeli bombardment of Gaza that has killed
more than 200 people. Israel launched the aerial offensive last week,
saying it aimed to halt the firing of Hamas rockets from Gaza into
Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon ordered the ground
operation to destroy tunnels dug from Gaza into Israeli territory,
according to a statement.
Thirteen Hamas militants
used a tunnel earlier Thursday to launch an attempted attack in Sufa,
near an Israeli kibbutz, but were stopped by Israeli soldiers, the
Israel Defense Forces said.
The IDF said it had sent a
"large" force into Gaza that includes infantry, tanks, artillery,
combat engineers and intelligence units, with aerial and naval support.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Mark Regev, Netanyahu's spokesman, whether
Israel planned to occupy Gaza for a long time.
Regev didn't answer
directly, but said Israel's goals are to "diminish" the Hamas military
force and to show that it cannot attack Israel with impunity.
Hamas warns of 'heavy price'
Hamas immediately
condemned the Israeli offensive. The militant group's spokesman Fawzi
Barhoum told CNN that "the beginning of the Israeli ground invasion of
Gaza is a dangerous step with unknown consequences. Israel will pay a
heavy price for it."
Jordan called for an
urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council following the Israeli
incursion. The timing and format of the meeting, which was expected to
take place Friday, wasn't immediately clear.
Later, appearing on Aqsa
TV, Barhoum said, "the resistance will confront the Israeli ground
invasion and will defend the people of Gaza."
He said Hamas military
forces are "far stronger" than during previous conflicts with Israel in
2009 and 2012. Militants are prepared to capture Israel soldiers and use
them to trade for some of the 5,000 prisoners in Israeli jails, Barhoum
said.
The IDF said early
Friday that one Israeli soldier was killed overnight in northern Gaza.
It said it had killed "some 14 terrorists in several exchanges of fire."
The number of Palestinian civilian casualties from the ground offensive
wasn't immediately clear.
'Hit Hamas hard'
"We have hit Hamas hard,
and we will continue to hit Hamas hard," the IDF tweeted. It called up
an extra 18,000 reservists into its ranks.
Palestinian security
sources said that Israeli tanks had reached Abu Holeh, roughly in the
center of Gaza, and that Israeli troops are clashing with Hamas and
Islamic Jihad fighters along the Kissufim road.
If Israeli forces go
from there to the sea, they could split Gaza as they did during their
2009 ground operation in the territory.
Before the incursion, the IDF dropped leaflets in 14 areas of Gaza, urging residents to temporarily leave their homes.
Rising death toll
The ground operation,
which Israeli officials had been threatening for days, followed one of
the worst evenings of violence since the war began. The fighting flared
after a temporary cease-fire, requested by the United Nations for
humanitarian purposes, ended earlier in the day.
The Gaza Health Ministry said seven children were killed in three hours on Thursday, adding to a growing toll.
Palestinian medical and
security sources say 246 people have been killed in Gaza, most of them
civilians, and more than 1,850 injured since Israel began its campaign
of airstrikes last week.
Israel says two of its citizens -- one civilian and one soldier -- have been killed during the conflict.
Kenneth Roth, executive
director of Human Rights Watch, said Israeli bombs hit Wafa Hospital in
Gaza while four patients were inside. Seventeen others had evacuated, he
said.
Explosions continued to
illuminate the sky over Gaza. Rockets screeched into the sky toward
Israel. Red tracer rounds flew across the horizon. The repetitive thud
of naval guns echoed across the territory.
Talks in Egypt
Before Israel launched
its ground offensive, officials from around the region had held talks in
Cairo about cease-fire proposals.
Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas met with Arab League Secretary-General Nabil
Al-Arabi. An Israeli delegation also attended, leaving after several
hours, the state-run al-Ahram news agency reported.
"I expect that we will
reach an agreement very soon; the efforts of a cease-fire is to stop the
bloodshed, killing and destruction in Gaza," said Nabil Shaath, an
Abbas adviser and member of the central committee of the Palestine
Liberation Organization.
He said negotiators were
focusing on stopping bloodshed above all else. He said they would later
discuss Hamas demands, including opening Gaza border crossings and
freeing prisoners whose exit from jail was negotiated in exchange for
the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
"These are all legitimate demands by Hamas, but the priority is for an immediate cease-fire," Shaath said.
Hamas leaders had
rejected an earlier Egyptian cease-fire proposal, saying they had not
been consulted on the deal and complaining that it did not address their
broader demands.
Egypt is playing a large role in the talks despite its distrust of Hamas.
Like Israel, Egypt
considers Hamas a terror organization because of the group's roots in
the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt's military-led government banned
after the country's 2013 coup.
The president ousted in
that coup, Mohamed Morsy, who was backed by the Muslim Brotherhood,
brokered the cease-fire that stopped the 2012 conflict between Israel
and Hamas.
CNN's Ben Wedeman reported from Gaza City,
and CNN's Jethro Mullen reported and wrote from Hong Kong. CNN's Ian
Lee, Ali Younes, Ralph Ellis, Michael Pearson, Kareem Khadder, Tim
Lister, , Diana Magnay, Samira Said, Michael Schwartz, Salma Abdelaziz
and Tal Heinrich contributed to this report.
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