- Title: GAZA: Fresh Israeli strike kills two girls in northern Gaza
- Date: 30th December 2008
- Summary: RESIDENTS QUEUING UP OUTSIDE BAKERY
- Embargoed: 14th January 2009 12:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVAEQKYC7FB0405K9EF2YZCO1RW7
- Story Text: Two young Palestinian girls are killed as Israeli airstrikes hit the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
Israeli strikes on the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun killed two young Palestinian girls on Tuesday (December 30) on the fourth day of the fiercest air offensive on the coastal Strip in decades.
The girls died while taking out the rubbish near their home, medical workers and witnesses said.
Another boy, who was in a critical condition on Tuesday, was transferred from a Beit Hanoun hospital to another Gaza hospital for treatment.
Earlier on Tuesday, Israel rejected any truce with Hamas Islamists and said it was ready for "long weeks of action".
As Israeli armoured vehicles and troops were massed along the border for a possible invasion, Israeli warplanes pressed on with strikes, killing 12 Palestinians, including a pair of sisters, 10 and 12, in attacks on what Israel describes as Hamas targets.
Medical officials put the total Palestinian death toll since Israel launched its offensive on Saturday as Gaza gunmen stepped up rocket fire, at 347 and more than 800 wounded. A United Nations agency said at least 62 of the dead were civilians. A UN spokesman said the number was very conservative and was expected to rise.
The latest Israeli attacks came hours after rockets fired by Palestinian militants killed an Israeli soldier near the border with Gaza and a civilian in the city of Ashdod.
Gaza city's streets were empty on Tuesday morning, with all shops closed and hardly any residents outside their homes.
People queued up outside a bakery in Gaza City hoping to be able to buy bread but the bakery manager said he only had enough flour to last one day.
With six weeks to go to an Israeli election, polls suggest the hawkish right-wing Likud party will win.
Israel's centrist government says the current offensive aims to put a stop to rockets which have been fired over the border by Hamas.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum has urged Palestinian groups to respond using "all available means" against Israel, including "martyrdom operations," meaning suicide bombings.
Israeli missiles flattened five ministerial buildings and a structure belonging to the Islamic University in Gaza City on Tuesday, witnesses said.
Broadening their targets to include the Hamas government in Gaza, Israeli warplanes on Monday bombed the Interior Ministry, which supervises 13,000 members of the group's security forces. The building had been evacuated and there were no casualties.
Hamas, an Islamist movement that took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 after routing Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, defied the Israeli assaults, the fiercest in the coastal territory since the 1967 Middle East war.
Rocket fire from Gaza at Israel intensified immediately after Hamas declared the end of an Egyptian-brokered, six-month-old truce on December
Most Gazans in the territory of 1.5 million people, one of the most densely populated on earth, have stayed at home, in rooms away from windows that could shatter in blasts from air strikes.
Israel has said it would allow more aid trucks into Gaza. About two dozen trucks loaded with goods were seen heading to Gaza crossings early on Tuesday. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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