Israeli Ground Offensive in Gaza Increasingly Likely, Official Warns

Israeli Army Warns Residents to Leave Northern Gaza.

Israeli ground forces are more likely to be sent into the Gaza Strip because of the refusal by Palestinian militants to halt their rocket attacks into Israel despite nine days of aerial bombardment, a senior Israeli military official said Wednesday.

“I think that every day that passes makes the possibility more evident,” the official said during a briefing for reporters at Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv. His assessment, he said, was based on knowledge of Israeli cabinet deliberations.

Despite Israel’s success in limiting the costs inflicted by rocket fire from Hamas and other Palestinian militant factions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli authorities have repeatedly warned that they are prepared to escalate the war to end the rocket barrages, which have caused one death and disrupted daily life across the country.

While underscoring the increasing impatience of Israel’s political and military establishment with Hamas and making plain that there were contingency plans for the re-occupation of the Gaza Strip, the senior military official said most Israeli policy makers still opposed any attempt to end Hamas rule in Gaza.

A day after an Egyptian cease-fire plan crumbled after only six hours, the number of Palestinian dead in Gaza passed 200, as Israeli warplanes continued to target what it said were Palestinian militants and their infrastructure.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said 209 Palestinians had been killed and 1,560 were injured since fighting escalated on July 7. Among the dead were at least 24 women and 39 children, it said.

Meanwhile, thousands of Gazans continued streaming out of neighborhoods north and to the east of Gaza City, following a night of thundering aerial and naval bombardment that lighted up the early-morning sky.

Israeli warnings issued by leaflet, phone recording and text message that they should vacate their homes by 8 a.m. Wednesday or risk bombardment proved effective.

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