Israeli tanks mass for 'Days of Penitence' in Gaza

Armoured vehicles massed on Gaza’s border today after Israel’s security Cabinet approved a large-scale military operation – codenamed Days of Penitence - to stop Palestinian rocket fire.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered troops to “exact a price” from the militants, security officials said, after a Hamas rocket killed two children, aged two and four, in an Israeli border town.

The Cabinet approved the offensive last night, at the end of a day of heavy fighting between troops and Palestinian gunmen in the Jebaliya refugee camp, the Palestinians’ largest and most densely populated.

In bloodshed today, five Palestinians were killed and 17 wounded in two missile strikes in Jebaliya. The army said troops fired at one group of militants planting explosives and another setting up a rocket launcher.

On Thursday, 28 Palestinians were killed and 139 wounded, most of them in Jebaliya. It was the highest single-day toll in fighting in 30 months.

Israeli officials said the operation would be open-ended.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the security Cabinet that he was determined to stop the rocket fire, but stopped short of calling up reserves.

“What can we do,” he said. ”The Jews, too, have a right to live.”

However, Justice Minister Yosef Lapid, a member of the security Cabinet, said it would be impossible to stop the crude rockets for good. “It’s such a simple weapon,” he said. “It’s impossible to ensure there won’t be some pipe with explosives hidden in somebody’s backyard.”

This morning, some 200 tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers assembled along Israel’s border north and east of Gaza. Troops were setting up makeshift camps, apparently in preparation for an extended operation. Some officers were going over maps.

The fight over control of Jebaliya, the birthplace of the first Palestinian uprising in 1987, could take on great symbolic value.

Militants have been stepping up attacks on Israelis in recent months, in hopes of portraying Israel’s planned withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 as a retreat under fire. The army has been pounding the militants in intensifying strikes, to deny them such claims.

After a relatively quiet night, gunmen were taking up positions in Jebaliya alleys today.

Nizar Rayan, the top Hamas leader in northern Gaza, encouraged the gunmen and gave them tips in a message broadcast in mosques and on a local radio station .

Rayan said gunmen should not remain in one place for more than three minutes, to avoid being spotted, and talk on their mobile phones only when absolutely necessary. The militants, who were moving in small groups of no more than seven, communicated largely through text messages.

Militants followed one of Rayan’s tips immediately – to reduce visibility by burning tyres and filling the air with black smoke, thus making it harder for Israeli unmanned aircraft to spot them.