Reporting from Gaza City and Jerusalem - Israel continued to tighten its grip on the Gaza Strip today, as world leaders pushed for an end to the fighting that entered its 10th day.

Smoke rises from a building hit in an Israeli air raid in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo: Reuters)

    After effectively bisecting the Gaza Strip over the weekend, the Israeli military announced that it had seized high-rise buildings and attacked tunnels at the edge of Gaza City. Further advances by the Israeli military would bring it into the heart of the Gaza's major city.

    Diplomatic efforts continued, but showed no tangible results as Israel insisted that it was justified in continuing its invasion until it was assured that Hamas, which controls Gaza, would cease its rocket fire at the Jewish state's southern flank.

    Despite the days of fierce bombings and invasion over the weekend, Hamas today continued its rocket attacks, launching more than 30 rockets at southern Israeli cities such as Ashkelon, Ashdod, Netivot and Ofakim.

    European leaders continued to call for a resumption of the truce between Israel and Hamas. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the West Bank since his faction lost control of Gaza to Hamas in June 2007.

    In Washington, President Bush again defended Israel's actions.

    "I understand Israel's desire to protect itself," Bush said. "The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas."

    Bush spoke after meeting with Salva Kiir, the leader of Sudan's troubled South. With Kiir sitting next to him, Bush spoke to reporters in remarks televised from the Oval Office.

    "Instead of caring about the people of Gaza, Hamas decided to use Gaza to launch rockets to kill innocent Israelis," Bush said. "Israel's obviously decided to protect herself and her people."

    Bush again said he was concerned about the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, cut off from supplies. He said the United States was prepared to supply additional aid. Israel reported that eighty trucks loaded with humanitarian aid were transferred into the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom crossing.

    The violence must end, "but not at the expense of an agreement that does not prevent the crisis from happening again," Bush said.

    Meanwhile, President-elect Barack Obama continued to steer clear of saying anything about Israel's actions. Obama was in Washington this morning, meeting with congressional leaders about the economy.

    The president-elect took no questions after meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, though he said he would have a press availability later in the day.

    The toll in the Mideast continued to rise. More than 500 Palestinians have reportedly been killed and at least 2,200 wounded. Five Israelis, including one soldier, have been killed.

    Israel has repeatedly made three demands for ending its current campaign: It wants an end to the rocket attacks, some form of outside supervision of Hamas' role in any cease-fire and a halt to any restocking of the group's arsenal.

    Israel has not called for an end of Hamas' control of Gaza, though the invasion has raised questions about who will patrol the region, which was once controlled by Israel.

    The heaviest fighting in Gaza was in the populated areas in the outskirts of Jebaliya. Dozens have been arrested, Israeli officials said

    Military sources said that the first stage of the ground operation has progressed relatively smoothly with a relatively low level of Hamas resistance. However, that could change as Israeli forces move into the more populated areas and face greater threats.

    In a prepared statement, Israeli defense officials said planes attacked dozens of Hamas tunnels along the Rafah border. The tunnels are used to smuggle weapons, supplies and personnel. The Israeli forces operated overnight with infantry and armor. Among the 30 targets hit were a mosque used for storing a large amount of weaponry and an underground bunker in the area of Gaza City.

    More than 30 rockets have been launched at Israel since this morning. A rocket slammed into an empty kindergarten in Ashdod, damaging the structure as well as adjacent buildings and cars.

    The leader who orchestrated Hamas' 2007 takeover of Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, exhorted Palestinians to "crush" Israeli forces.

    "The Zionists have legitimized the killing of their children by killing our children. They have legitimized the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people," Zahar said in a grainy video broadcast on Hamas TV. "Crush your enemy," he urged.

    A spokesman for Hamas' military wing, identified by a nom de guerre, Abu Obeida, said the Islamic militants will fire more rockets deeper into Israel, the Associated Press reported. His face concealed behind a trademark red mask, he appeared on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV standing before a map of Israel with Xs marking previous areas hit by Hamas rockets and circles for areas Hamas intends to hit.

    He warned Israeli ground forces that "we prepared for you thousands of mighty fighters, who wait for you in every street and every alleyway."

    Throughout the Gaza Strip, most of the enclave's 1.5 million Palestinian residents huddled indoors for safety, venturing out only to line up for dwindling supplies of bread and household goods.

    Dr. Moawiya Hassanein of Gaza City's main Shifa Hospital said on Sunday that more than half the day's casualties were civilians, including a mother and her four children killed by an Israeli tank shell east of Gaza City. The militants' casualty count was probably much higher, Hassanein said, but it was too risky for ambulances and rescue crews to approach the conflict zone.

    One ambulance, funded by the international aid organization Oxfam, was struck by an Israeli shell while trying to evacuate injured from the front-line community of Beit Lahiya, the organization announced. The impact killed one paramedic; a second paramedic lost a foot.

    "The incident shows yet again that trying to fight a military campaign in the densely populated streets and alleys of the Gaza Strip will inevitably lead to civilian casualties. There are no safe areas, and Gazans who want to flee the fighting have been prevented from leaving the strip," said Oxfam Country Director John Prideaux-Brune in Jerusalem.

    It is difficult to get independent reports of the fighting because most foreign media have been barred from the territory.

    At least two Israeli armored thrusts sliced deep into the narrow coastal territory, cutting off Gaza City's approximately 400,000 residents from the rest of the strip. One force fought into the edges of the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City; a second force pushed into the abandoned Jewish settlement of Netzarim, several miles south of Gaza City. Israel left Netzarim, along with other settlements, when it pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

    The Netzarim incursion essentially cuts the tiny, densely packed territory into two parts. Hassanein, the Shifa Hospital official, said there were 20 truckloads of desperately needed medical aid in the southern end of the enclave unable to reach Gaza City, where most of the casualties were being brought.

    U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon conveyed his "extreme concern and disappointment" over the death toll in a phone call to Olmert and sought an immediate end to the operation.

    A delegation led by Palestinian Authority President Abbas is scheduled to arrive in New York today to pressure the U.N. Security Council to demand a cease-fire. President Bush is scheduled to meet with Ban on Tuesday to discuss the Gaza crisis.

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    Abu Alouf is a special correspondent. Times staff writers Borzou Daragahi in Beirut and Michael Muskal in Los Angeles and special correspondent Ahmed Burai in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.

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