Israel threatens to step up Gaza invasion

Palestinian death toll crosses 274 mark as Israeli tanks and troops move in to target tunnels used by Hamas fighters. Last updated: 18 Jul 2014 16:24

Israel says it may broaden a ground assault that is says is aimed at destroying Hamas' network of cross-border tunnels, amid a land, sea and air offensive that has killed at least 274 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. For their part, diplomats have stepped up efforts to halt 11 days of bloodshed in and around Gaza while Pope Francis has demanded an immediate ceasefire in a phone call with Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas. INTERACTIVE: Gaza Under Attack During talks on Friday in the Egyptian capital Cairo with Laurent Fabius, French foreign minister, Abbas reportedly sought French help to lobby Qatar and Turkey to pressure Hamas into accepting a truce. In the face of Israel's military offensive, Hamas remains defiant, however, and has warned Israel it would "drown in the swamp of Gaza". As Gaza residents spoke of a night of terror, with fierce gun battles in the south and all-night shelling in the north, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, said the operation could yet be widened, despite growing international calls to avoid harm to civilians. "My instructions and those of the defence minister to the military ... is to prepare for the possibility of a significant broadening of the ground activity," he said in Tel Aviv. Immediately afterwards, Netanyahu convened his security cabinet to discuss plans for a possible expansion of the campaign, which began on July 8 with the aim of stamping out cross-border rocket fire. 'Gaza under Gaza' Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Gaza, said Israeli troops were targeting the tunnels which Palestinian fighters were using. "Hamas has managed to set up a tunnel - the Gaza under Gaza - which is a new thing that didn't exist in the last conflict," she said. Early on Friday, Israel approved the call-up of another 18,000 reservists, taking the total number approved to 65,000, the army said. The ground operation, which began in the Gaza periphery at around 2000 GMT on Thursday, sent thousands of people fleeing west to escape the fighting along the Israeli border, a UN official told AFP news agency. "People are fleeing from east to west, away from the border," he said indicating that so far, about 30,000 people were taking refuge in 27 UN schools and other institutions. By mid-morning Friday, the road between Gaza City and Khan Younis was deserted, with only a single minibus, packed with passengers, heading south, its windows covered with makeshift white flags, an AFP correspondent said. Ebaa Rezeq, a Gaza City resident, told Al Jazeera that while Israeli soldiers remained near the buffer zone, air raids and shelling were continuing to terrify civilians. During Friday prayers, imams at Gaza's 1,400 mosques relayed a single message to the faithful: "Be patient and strong. Victory will come." With food supplies running desperately low, the World Food Programme said had already distributed emergency food rations and food vouchers to more than 20,000 displaced people since the conflict erupted on July 8. But with the ground operation, it was gearing up for a huge increase in the coming days, Elisabeth Byrs, a WFP spokeswoman, said in Geneva, Switzerland. Gaza was also struggling with a 70 percent power outage after electricity lines from Israel were damaged, officials said. "We usually receive 120 MW and now it is zero," Fathi Sheikh Khalil, head of Gaza's electricity company, told AFP. "We asked the Israeli electricity company to repair some lines on their side but they said it's too dangerous. Now 70 percent of the Gaza Strip is without electricity." Since midnight, 26 people have been killed across Gaza by Israeli fire, including three teenagers and a five-month-old baby, raising to 267 the total number of Palestinians killed in the past 11 days. An Israeli civilian and a soldier have also been killed. In one of the air raids, a building housing local media offices in Gaza City was struck by three bombs. Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston, reporting from Gaza, said the attack was "just a small example of what's been happening here across the territory all night". Network of tunnels Israel has said the aim of its ground operation is to destroy Hamas's network of tunnels which are used for cross-border attacks on southern Israel. On Thursday morning, 13 heavily armed fighters managed to infiltrate southern Israel before being spotted by troops, with one killed in an air strike and the rest fleeing back underground. Israel pulled out all of its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but within a year it became the de facto seat of Hamas after it won a landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, as Palestinian President Abbas headed to Turkey to further regional ceasefire efforts, Israel said it was pulling out some of its diplomatic staff following violent protests targeting the buildings of its embassy and consulate in Ankara and Istanbul. Overnight, hundreds attacked the Israeli consulate in Istanbul in a violent show of anger, with police firing tear gas and water cannon at the protesters, an AFP correspondent said. A similar number of protesters sought to break into the residence of the ambassador in Ankara, but police stood by and did nothing, another correspondent said.