Gaza City under attack by Israel

- Israeli troops and tanks thrust into the Gaza Strip's densely populated capital from three directions today, drawing Hamas fighters into fierce combat in an offensive expanded by a fresh deployment of army reservists.

The assault on Gaza City coincided with a predawn missile barrage that set 20 homes ablaze in a southern Gaza village. Scores of residents suffered burns and gas inhalation, witnesses said. Doctors who treated the victims said they suspected Israel had fired white phosphorus shells, which can be used to illuminate the nighttime battlefield or to lay down a smoke screen.

- Israeli

Plumes of black smoke rose over Gaza City as Israeli ground forces backed by helicopter gunships inched into neighborhoods on the capital's southwestern, eastern and northern edges before dawn.

Tall apartment buildings shook from the force of Israeli artillery and airstrikes, and Hamas fighters answered with mortars, automatic rifles and grenades. It was the heaviest fighting since Israel attacked the Palestinian enclave Dec. 27, saying it wanted to halt years of rocket attacks on southern Israeli communities.

The Israeli military pressed ahead with its offensive against Hamas, moving into Gaza City, and its intelligence chiefs said the capacity of the militant Islamic group to fire rockets into Israel had been degraded.

Israeli troops, who had been holding positions outside Gaza City, pushed into its southern neighborhoods yesterday. Israel started bombing Gaza on Dec. 27 and sent in ground troops a week later with the declared purpose of stopping the barrage of rockets being fired from Gaza.