MIDDLE EAST: Israel's Defence Minister said yesterday that one of the biggest operations launched by the Israeli military in Gaza was open-ended, while Palestinian leaders appealed to the international community to exert pressure on Israel to end its invasion of the southern part of the Strip which had claimed 20 lives by last night.
Palestinians said that the dead, 24 hours into the operation, included two children.
Health officials in Gaza said that 10 Palestinians had been killed in two missile strikes by Israeli helicopters and another nine by gunfire from troops. One militant was killed while handling explosives.
The Israeli army said most of the dead were militants and that the aerial strikes had targeted armed men.
In one incident Ahmed Mughayer (13) and his sister, Asma (16) were killed on the roof of their apartment building, family members said.
The shots had been fired by troops atop a neighbouring apartment block, they added. After isolating the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah - a flashpoint of violence for over three years - from the rest of the Strip, troops operated yesterday in a neighbourhood on the outskirts of the camp, conducting house-to-house searches.
Asked about the planned duration of "Operation Rainbow", as the army has named it, Defence Minister Mr Shaul Mofaz replied, "there is no time limit".
Facing growing international criticism over the demolition of homes in Rafah and the thousands of residents who have fled the camp as the tanks move in, Israeli officials tried to downplay plans to destroy more homes.
Army chief Lieut Gen Moshe Ya'alon, who was quoted as telling ministers on Sunday that hundreds more homes in Rafah might be destroyed, said yesterday that the military's "plan is not to demolish houses". Only those used by militants for cover or to hide arms-smuggling tunnels would be destroyed, he said.
Militants have dug tunnels from Rafah through to the Egyptian side of the border and use them to smuggle weapons into the Strip.
The Israeli military has been talking of widening a corridor it controls between the camp and the Egyptian border in an effort to prevent the smuggling of weapons. Israel demolished some 100 homes along this patrol road last week after five soldiers were killed there, and talk of widening it has raised fears among Palestinians that more homes will be bulldozed.
Palestinian President Mr Yasser Arafat yesterday appealed for international intervention. "What is happening in Rafah is an operation to destroy and to transfer the local Palestinian population, and this must not be accepted, not by the Palestinians, nor the Arabs, nor by the international community," he told reporters at his Ramallah compound.
US criticism of Israel has been tepid so far.
Addressing AIPAC, the influential pro-Israel lobby in Washington, President Bush said yesterday that the "unfolding violence in the Gaza Strip is troubling and underscores the need for all parties to seize every opportunity for peace".
European leaders were sharper, especially in their criticism of Israel. EU foreign policy chief Mr Javier Solana said, "What is going on is the destruction of houses and that is something that goes very much against the letter and the spirit of the road map [peace plan]."
The United Nations Security Council was meeting last night in emergency session to discuss the Israeli operation in southern Gaza.