Israeli Bulldozers Answer Rockets

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday that Israel would expand the deadliest Gaza offensive in four years, keeping troops in the area indefinitely with the goal of stopping Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli towns.

Sharon said he was determined to halt rocket fire on towns inside Israel and shelling of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Other Israeli officials said the raid would not establish a permanent Israeli presence in Gaza.

Continued violence Sunday killed seven Palestinians in northern Gaza, while an eighth died of wounds sustained earlier.

Israel's U.N. ambassador demanded Sunday that the world body investigate the actions of its top official in Gaza in the wake of Israeli accusations that Gaza militants used a U.N. vehicle to transport a homemade rocket.

Ambassador Dan Gillerman said he was asking U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate Peter Hansen, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, after the Israeli army released video taken by an unmanned aircraft flying over the Jebaliya refugee camp.

The video was released while the army launched a wide-scale operation in Jebaliya and nearby towns in an attempt to halt Palestinian rocket attacks on towns in Israel. Those rocket attacks killed two Israeli preschoolers Wednesday.

Israel, which has long accused UNRWA of bias, said the footage showed militants loading a rocket into a U.N. vehicle. The United Nations denied the accusation and said Sunday the footage showed a worker loading a stretcher into an ambulance.

After an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis, Palestinian legislators issued a statement Sunday implying that militants should stop firing rockets at Israel.

"The Palestinian Legislative Council, while asserting our people's right to resist Israel's ugly occupation, calls on all factions to put this resistance in a strategic frame that is consistent with the Palestinian higher interests," the lawmakers said in a statement.

Israel poured 2,000 troops into the northern Gaza Strip after a Palestinian rocket attack on Wednesday killed two preschoolers in the town of Sderot. Since then, 58 Palestinians and three more Israelis have been killed.

In the Jebaliya refugee camp, the scene of the bloodiest fighting, troops and tanks pulled back a few dozens yards overnight, leaving behind a swath of destruction.

Bulldozers destroyed rows of homes, uprooted orchards and tore up roads. U.N. officials said dozens of people were made homeless.

"It is necessary to bring about a complete end to the firing of rockets on Sderot and other towns that border the Gaza Strip. The current situation cannot continue," Sharon told Israel Radio.

"We have to expand ... the areas of operation in order to get the rocket launchers out of the range of Israeli towns," he added.

Currently, the homemade, low-explosive rockets the Palestinians manufacture have a range of about 5 miles. But on Saturday, Hamas militants threatened to strike the Israeli city of Ashkelon, 9 miles from Gaza.

Sharon brushed off the Hamas threats, but told Israel's Army Radio the operation "is not a short thing. The forces will have to remain there as long as this danger exists."

The rocket attacks could increase opposition to Sharon's contentious plan to evacuate all Gaza Strip settlements in September 2005. But the prime minister insisted the evacuation would be implemented on schedule, and that he had ordered the army to ensure it would occur "quietly."

"We must also operate to stop the shelling of Israeli communities in Gaza now and during the evacuation," he said.

Over the weekend, Israeli forces hit hard at Palestinian militants in Jebaliya and the nearby towns. The army has labeled its operation "Days of Penitence."

Israeli officials said the military had no intention of setting up a long-term presence in northern Gaza, but they gave no time limit for the operation.

"Altogether, this operation is successful," Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, told reporters in Gaza. "But we will continue this operation as long as we need. The troops are ready to continue, not in terms of days, but weeks."

On Sunday, two militants on a donkey cart were killed in an Israeli missile strike just after they fired a rocket at an Israeli town. The army said the militants were standing alongside a wagon full of rockets, which was also blown up. A third militant was in critical condition.

The militants belong to the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella organization of Palestinian factions.

Later Sunday, militants fired two more rockets into southern Israel. The army said the rockets landed in open fields and caused no injuries.

Also Sunday, a 13-year-old boy, Saber Asaliya, was killed after being shot in the chest in eastern Jebaliya, hospital officials said. The army had no immediate comment.

Earlier, two Islamic Jihad militants were killed in an Israeli strike in Jebaliya, Palestinian security and hospital officials said.

Palestinian security officials said an aircraft fired a missile, killing the two and wounding three other people. The military said soldiers saw militants planting a bomb and opened fire on them from the ground.

The army said another militant was shot and killed in nearby Beit Hanoun as he was planting a bomb along with other militants.

In Jebaliya, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Raed Abu Wadi, 36, a deaf and mute man, as he stood on his balcony Sunday, hospital officials and witnesses said.

In an initial report, the army said the man was wearing a bulletproof vest and had been observing soldiers for several days from his home when he was shot. The army later said soldiers shot the armed man as he ran toward soldiers.

After daybreak Sunday, Palestinians found the remains of a man who had been decapitated, apparently by a tank shell. Hospital officials later identified him as a Hamas militant.

Also Sunday, Mohammed An-Najar, 13, who had been shot in the head Saturday, died of his wounds, hospital officials said.

Early Sunday, more than 35 tanks and five bulldozers briefly moved into the eastern part of the Tel Al-Zatar area, northeast of Jebaliya, and bulldozers razed at least seven houses, two factories and a kindergarten, residents said.

Toys, coloring books, and posters of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse were scattered throughout the destroyed kindergarten.

"Is this place an army base or military training camp to be targeted?" asked Jaber Abu Oukal, the head of the kindergarten.

"We have 400 boys and girls ages 3-5 who used to come here to play and start their first step in the educational process. Now they have no place to go but the street," he said. "Those kids will remember forever what the occupation did in their place and who destroyed their toys and took the smile from their faces."

Also Sunday, Israeli tanks and bulldozers opened a new front, briefly moving from a Jewish settlement in southern Gaza into the Khan Younis refugee camp, residents said. Militants in Khan Younis often fire mortar rounds at Jewish settlements in the area.

The incursion into Khan Younis could indicate the military was moving to implement Sharon's goal of ending mortar shelling before implementing his planned evacuation of Gaza settlements.

Until now, the army's activities have focused mainly on the northern part of the crowded coastal territory, home to 1.3 million Palestinians. On Thursday, the Israelis began operations in a 5-mile buffer zone to move Israel out of range of the rockets.

About 15,000 people living in the area of the raid have been without water and electricity for days. Many ill people have been unable to reach hospitals or get their medicine, which health officials normally distribute at the beginning of each month.