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Israeli forces on Sunday held its ground offensive in the deepest incursion into the most populated area of Gaza, where the tanks were moving into neighborhoods and infantry fighting in the streets and buildings with extremists Hamas, which also continued firing rockets into southern Israel.



An Israeli army spokesman said that Gaza had neighborhoods crammed with rudimentary bombs and explosives with decoys, including dummies positioned at the entrance of similar apartments for militiamen ready to explode and if the soldiers approached.


"Given that most of the Hamas militia are rather hidden in these places, especially urban areas, then we operate in those areas," said the spokeswoman, more Avital Leibovich.

Large columns of smoke emerging from the Gaza City on Sunday night, while in the south of the town were heard intense gunfire. At dawn on Monday, launches artilladas Israel fired at least 25 missiles at Gaza City, which caused fires and shook office buildings such as the drafting of local The Associated Press.


The armed forces said that in general the targets were Hamas facilities, but there were no immediate details.

Before dawn on Monday, at least one militiaman was killed by an Israeli shelling in northern Gaza, where continued fighting, hospital sources said.


The medical authorities in Gaza said at least 870 Palestinians, half of them civilians, died in the conflict which erupted on December 27 air missions over buildings with Hamas as well as assumptions points for launching rockets and tunnels smuggling on the border with Egypt. In the clashes have killed 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers.

In diplomatic efforts, the envoys of Germany and Britain maintain the effort to negotiate an end to the conflict, but Israel and Hamas have ignored a Security Council resolution the United Nations that calls for an immediate ceasefire and lasting settlement.


In Cairo, the Egyptian official news agency reported progress in talks with Hamas on a truce, but gave no details. According to the News Agency of the Middle East, an Egyptian official said that talks between the national intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman and Hamas representatives were "positive."

The outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Israel was moving into their targets in the Gaza offensive, but it is still not finished.


"Israel is approaching the goals that were imposed" to "change the reality of security in the south," said Olmert.

Israel seeks to stop the firing of rockets that Hamas has fired several years to the population in southern Israel. The goal is complicated since it would require the support of Egypt and several countries to eliminate the routes used for smuggling arms into Gaza from Egypt. Israel has bombed tunnel passing under the border of Egypt and Gaza.


The leader of Hamas, Ismail Radwan, said his group will not consider a ceasefire with Israel until the Jewish state suspended the attacks and to withdraw from Gaza. In an email, also demanded the opening of all border crossings, on the crossing between Rafah and Egypt.

The medical authorities in Gaza reported that on Sunday there were 60 dead, including 17 from injuries suffered in previous days. According to medical officers, most of those killed Sunday were not combatants and the victims were four members of a family and a girl of 10 years.


According to Palestinian witnesses, Israeli troops came to 800 meters (half mile) from the southern neighborhoods of Gaza City, which has 400,000 inhabitants. In the neighborhood of Sheikh Ajlin died Sunday some 20 Palestinians in fighting between Israeli soldiers and militia groups, one of the most bloody battles so far, Palestinian medical sources said. Specifying how many casualties might be civilians. There were no reports of Israeli casualties.

"We are fine, but do not know for how long," Allawi said Khamis, 44, who spent the night with his wife and six children in the kitchen. He stated that walls and windows of his house was torn by bullets.


Israel mobilized a reserve that was at the border, said army spokesman, Brigadier General Avi Benayahu, but declined to specify whether it was a new stage in the offensive which began on December 27 and continued with air strikes on January 3 with a ground incursion.

The British envoy to the Middle East, former Prime Minister Tony Blair and a prominent German diplomat visited Jerusalem on Sunday. Blair, after meeting with Olmert, agreed with the main demands of the parties and said the emergency was vital because more people die every day.