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GAZA CITY: Israeli troops battled Hamas fighters in major cities of overcrowded Gaza on Tuesday as Israel rebuffed appeals to stop a war on the Islamists that has killed at least 560 Palestinians.
Israeli tanks firing cannons and backed by helicopter gunships rolled into the southern city of Khan Yunis in the pre-dawn hours, to be met by return fire from Hamas and other militant groups, witnesses said.
The incursion came as Israeli infantry and Hamas gunmen fought pitched battles in Gaza City, where the tank and helicopter night offensive saw three soldiers killed by "friendly" fire.
The heaviest fighting raged in the north around Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya and in the central Gaza Strip around Deir Al-Balah, witnesses said.
In all, at least 20 Palestinians were killed in early morning fighting on Tuesday across the Gaza Strip, according to witnesses and medics.
Protests against one of Israel's deadliest ever offensives on Gaza spiralled around the globe and French President Nicolas Sarkozy led new calls for a truce as he held talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
"We, Europe, want a ceasefire as soon as possible," Sarkozy said on Monday. "Time is working against peace. The weapons must be silenced and there must be a temporary humanitarian truce."
But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed that the campaign would continue until Israel completely wiped out Hamas's ability to fire rockets into Israel.
"The results of the operation must be... that Hamas must not only stop firing but must no longer be able to fire," he was quoted as saying.
"We cannot accept a compromise that will allow Hamas to fire in two months against Israeli towns."
Israel unleashed its "Operation Cast Lead" on Hamas on December 27 with a massive air bombardment of Gaza, and poured in thousands of ground troops a week later.
Since then, at least 560 Palestinians have been killed, nearly 100 of them children, and more than 2,700 wounded, according to Gaza medics.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said people were dying because ambulances could not reach them amid the fighting.
Sarkozy, in Jerusalem after meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah, called the Hamas rocket attacks "irresponsible and unforgivable," sparking the Islamists' retort that he was "totally biased" towards Israel.
Olmert and Sarkozy agreed the latter would continue to push for a deal involving Egypt.
Cairo brokered a six-month truce that ended on December 19, which Hamas refused to renew and Sarkozy spoke after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and as a senior Hamas delegation was due to arrive in Egypt for talks on ending the violence.
Israel's main ally the United States continued to lend strong support to the operation, with US President George W. Bush saying any truce must ensure an end to rocket fire.
"I understand Israel's desire to protect itself and that the situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas," he said.
The fighting in one of the world's most densely-populated places where minors make up a large chuck of the 1.5 million population has claimed dozens of civilian lives.
In the latest such incident, a couple and their five children were killed by a navy shell, medics said. Three children were killed by a shell in the Gaza City suburbs and two were killed in Shati, they said.
Israeli officials have insisted they are doing all to prevent civilian casualties and have blamed Hamas for operating from civilian centres.
Gaza militants have continued to fire rockets into Israel despite the massive offensive, with three civilians and one soldier killed by the projectiles since December 27.
Four Israeli soldiers have been killed and another 79 wounded since the start of the ground offensive on Saturday, according to the army.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since seizing the densely populated coastal enclave in June 2007 from forces loyal to Abbas, has remained defiant.
"Victory is coming," its senior leader in Gaza, Mahmud Zahar, said in a television broadcast.
Israel faces intense international pressure to ease the suffering of the aid-dependent 1.5 million Gaza population, which has no power or water supplies and finding food is a daily struggle.
- AFP/yb
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