Israel pushes back into Gaza, dozens killed and wounded

The Israeli occupation army moved Wednesday into a Gaza refugee camp, killing 7 Palestinians and injuring over 70.

Israeli forces backed by tanks moved into the Mughazi refugee camp near the Gaza-Israel fence early Wednesday, the latest incursion in the three-week military push in the territory Israel withdrew from last year.

30 Israeli armored vehicles were deployed into the camp at sunrise, residents said.

Several bulldozers were seen leveling farmlands.

14 people, including many children, were reportedly wounded after Israeli forces fired shells at two houses in the camp, hospital officials said.

Two Hamas fighters were also killed and five wounded in clashes with the occupation army. Reports also said that five Israeli soldiers were wounded, two of them seriously, during the clashes.

Israeli military sources confirmed that troops moved into the central Gaza Strip late Tuesday, repeating the government claim that the incursion, part of a wide-scale military operation Israel started last month, is aimed at pressuring the Palestinians release Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit they captured three weeks ago.

"It is a focused operation to target terror infrastructure there, as part of the ongoing effort in which one of its main targets is getting back Gilad Shalit and stopping the launching of Qassam rockets," a spokeswoman said.

More than 100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and one Israeli soldier, have been killed since Israel began its assault in Gaza.

International calls demanding Israel end its brutal offensive in Gaza and Lebanon have fallen on deaf ears and a UN resolution urging Israel halt military operations that killed hundreds of civilians in the Palestinian and Lebanese territories was vetoed by the United States at the Security Council last week.

Israel began a large-scale operation in Gaza on June 28, three days after Hamas fighters launched an attack against an Israeli army base at a Gaza crossing, capturing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to pressure the Jewish State free Palestinian prisoners held at the Israeli jails.

Humanitarian disaster

UN envoys met yesterday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza City and discussed the ongoing Israeli onslaught in the Palestinian territories and its humanitarian consequences.

"We hope the present crisis engulfing Gaza is to be overcome and we can come back to the situation where it is possible to pursue the objective of peace," UN envoy Alvaro De Soto said.

"The only issue that President Abbas focused on was to find a way to stop this Israeli escalation on the ground," Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

"This is the main topic; this is what we are looking for, apart from the humanitarian crisis which we suffer from."