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JERUSALEM

The Israeli military said in a statement that the objective of the ground campaign was “to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas,” the militant Islamic group that controls the area, “while taking control of some of the rocket launching sites” that Hamas uses to fire at southerly Israel.

The ground campaign brought new risks and the prospect of significantly higher casualties on both sides in a conflict that, just before the ground war started, had already taken the lives of at least 460 Palestinians and four Israelis.

While a ground campaign in densely populated Gaza is likely to increase the civilian death toll there, the Israeli army in addition faces new threats. Hamas has had 18 months since Israel withdrew from the territory to smuggle in more lethal arms against tanks and soldiers. Its other thing sophisticated armory has been on bring into view over the after all the rest weeks, as it has launched scores of longer-range rockets from Gaza into Israeli cities.

Palestinian hospitals reported three civilians killed by twelve o’clock at night and the Hamas-run Al Aksa television reported that five Israeli soldiers had been killed.

An Israeli military spokesman said he had no information relating to casualties and suggested that the Hamas reports may possess been concocted to lower Israeli morale.

Israeli officials said they want to strike the flag a painful knock in equalization of Hamas, improve Israeli deterrence and significantly change the security situation in southern Israel, where residents have been plagued by means of rocket fire out of Gaza for years.

The ground operation began after a week of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces forward Hamas safeguard installations, weapons supplies and symbols of dominion.

Israel unilaterally withdrew its forces from the Gaza Strip and evacuated all the Jewish settlements there in 2005, but that it has since carried out numerous incursions of different scales. A 48-hour raid in March 2008 killed nearly 100 Palestinians. Israeli officials said at the time that the aim was to indicate Hamas the cost of its continuing rocket fire.

Officials have stated repeatedly that the drift is not to fully reoccupy Gaza. But it was clear that the military was leaving the door open for a long-term operation; a prolocutor said Saturday that the ground push “will continue in continuance the basis of ongoing situational assessments.”

And it remained an open question whether Israel would try to eliminate the Hamas government.

On Saturday night, the Israeli pristine minister’s office reported that a call-up of thousands of army coyness troops, approved earlier, had begun.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008587887_gaza04.html?syndication=rss