Gaza's Bloodiest Day In 2½ Months

Israeli troops struck deep inside the largest Palestinian refugee camp Thursday, battling masked gunmen in an unprecedented campaign to stop deadly rocket fire on Israeli towns. Twenty-three Palestinians were killed, the bloodiest single-day toll in fighting in 30 months.

Three Israelis — two soldiers and an Israeli woman jogger — were killed in two Palestinian shooting attacks in northern Gaza.

Israel's defense minister wants to launch a large-scale operation in Gaza to try to stop Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli communities, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger, after two Israeli children, ages 2 and 4, were killed in a Hamas rocket attack. That also prompted Thursday's Israeli assault.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called a meeting of his security Cabinet for later Thursday to vote on a large-scale military offensive in Gaza.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz recommends an open-ended campaign, security officials said, and the army's push into the center of Jebaliya — a first in four years of fighting — signaled a change in military tactics.

Since fighting erupted in 2000, the military had refrained from reoccupying large areas of crowded Gaza for long periods, for fear of getting bogged down in urban combat. The army has felt less constrained in the less densely populated West Bank.

With Palestinian attacks in Gaza taking heavy Israeli casualties, criticism is mounting against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to pull out of Gaza next year.

Gaza settler Rachel Sapperstein said instead of appeasing terrorists Sharon should tell them "you will not get Jewish land, you will not get the Land of Israel, as a reward for your terrorism."

Other Israelis, reports Berger, say the sooner Israel gets out of Gaza, the better.

Armored vehicles rolled into squalid Jebaliya, a militant stronghold with 106,000 residents, on Thursday morning. Throughout the day, masked Palestinians taking cover in camp alleys shot assault rifles — and occasionally anti-tank missiles and grenades — at tanks who responded with machine gun fire. Militants were seen laying explosive charges and unraveling detonation wire.

In the bloodiest incident, a tank fired a shell toward a group of gunmen, killing seven Palestinians and seriously wounding 23, including gunmen and civilians. Many of the wounded lost limbs, and at least four were under the age of 14, doctors said.

The local Kamal Adwan Hospital was overwhelmed by the influx, and doctors had to treat some of the patients on the blood-soaked floor and on cafeteria tables.

Ahmed Salem, 10, said the shell was fired from a tank at a U.N. school near Jebaliya's market. "I was hit and fell to the ground. The man lying next to me had no head," said the boy who was wounded by shrapnel in the leg.

Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, the army commander in Gaza, said the shell was aimed at militants who had fired an anti-tank shell at an armored personnel carrier, lightly injuring three soldiers. Harel said several Palestinian children were apparently near the gunmen. "We are very sorry that civilians are being hurt ," Harel said, but accused gunmen of using civilians as a shield.

Palestinian militants have fired hundreds of rockets and mortar shells at Gaza settlements and Israeli border towns since 2000. Most attacks caused damage and minor injuries. There have been two deadly strikes, including Wednesday's hit on the border town of Sederot that killed two children as they played on the sidewalk in a quiet neighborhood at the onset of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

Palestinian militants have intensified attacks in recent months in hopes of portraying the Israeli withdrawal as a retreat under fire. Israeli troops, in turn, have stepped up military operations to pound militant groups before the pullout.

Israeli government spokesman Gideon Meir said Israel was forced to act after 11 previous operations in northern Gaza failed to stop the rockets. "The purpose of a wider operation is to protect the Israeli civilian areas," he said. "They (militants) want to show Israel is running out of Gaza under fire."

Former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan, seen as a key player in running Gaza after an Israeli withdrawal, said Israel's offensive "will result in a bloodbath on both sides because the Palestinian people cannot remain silent in the face of this aggression."

Israeli troops moved into northern Gaza in Wednesday morning, several hours before the Sderot missile strike. By Thursday, they controlled the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, as well as large areas of the Jebaliya camp.

Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis — two soldiers and a woman settler — in two attacks in northern Gaza.

In one incident, two gunmen fired on an army observation post near Jebaliya, killing a soldier before being shot dead. Near the Jewish settlement of Elei Sinai, two attackers killed a woman jogger and an army medic who came to her aid. The gunmen were eventually killed by troops.

However, the heaviest fighting raged in Jebaliya. For the first time in four years of fighting, troops came close to the downtown market and set up two positions in the camp, one at a U.N. school and the second at a Palestinian police training center.

Army bulldozers demolished 22 homes along a relatively narrow road leading into the camp, U.N. aid officials said, apparently to widen it and allow more tanks to get through. Armored vehicles avoided the booby-trapped main street in the camp.

"A bulldozer entered our living room and demolished half the house," said Hussein al-Jamal, a resident of the camp's Block 2, adding that he and his family fled, along with many of his neighbors.

Thursday's deaths marked the highest one-day Palestinian toll since April 2002 when 35 were killed in the West Bank, during Defensive Shield, major Israeli military operation.

A masked Hamas gunman carrying a rocket launcher said he expected Israeli soldiers to leave soon. "Jebaliya will be a burial ground for their soldiers," he said on condition of anonymity. "They will run away and we will stay."

Shlomo Brom, an Israeli analyst and former army planner, said the military could stop the rocket fire for now.

"The question is what is the cost," he said. "Israel can take over areas physically, but there will be heavy Palestinian casualties."