No End In Sight In Gaza Battle

Israeli tanks on the border of the Gaza Strip Israel launched airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza for a fourth consecutive day on Tuesday as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the bombardment “the first of several stages,” suggesting that the conflict was far from resolution.

Israeli aircraft bombed a government compound, buildings linked to the Islamic University and the home of a top Hamas commander in a continued onslaught on Tuesday that left Gaza without electric power, according to residents of the beleaguered enclave.

Gaza residents said Israeli warships in increasing numbers were visible from the enclave's Mediterranean shoreline, while Israeli tanks and troops massed on its land border.

But despite the encirclement, Hamas militants remained defiant, launching at least 10 rockets into southern Israel on Tuesday. It was a less intense barrage than on Monday but one that demonstrated the widening range of Hamas firepower as it uses increasingly long-range rockets for its reprisals to reach deeper into southern Israel, hitting some towns for the first time.One rocket hit an apartment house in the town of Sderot, injuring one person, witnesses said, and two others reached the Bedouin town of Rahat.

So far in the offensive, more than 350 Palestinians — about 60 of them civilians — have been killed, according to the United Nations. Four Israelis — three civilians and a soldier — have died.

Israeli says its strikes, which began Saturday, are intended to neutralize the threat posed to southern Israel by Hamas rockets and would continue until the threat from Hamas rockets ended.

As the airstrikes continued Tuesday, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit told Israel Radio, “There is no room for a cease-fire. The government is determined to remove the threat of fire on the south. Therefore, the Israeli Army must not stop the operation before breaking the will of Palestinians, of Hamas, to continue to fire at Israel.”