Israel army presses Gaza ground assault

GAZA CITY: Israeli troops backed by tanks and warplanes pushed deeper into Gaza on Friday in an operation to halt rocket fire and destroy tunnels that Hamas said is doomed to fail.

The death toll among Palestinians soared to 260 as the large-scale Israeli offensive entered its 11th day, with the army bombarding Gaza by air and sea as well as from tanks massed along the border.

Israel reported its first combat death since its troops went in, while a five-month-old baby was among the 19 Palestinians reported killed on Friday.

The Jewish state said it was pressing ahead with the operation to destroy a network of tunnels that riddle the Gaza strip, used for assembling rockets and staging cross border attacks.

Before the ground offensive was launched, the army said it had foiled a subterranean raid by Gaza militants into southern Israel.

Thirteen militants emerged from a tunnel under the Gaza border, and were headed towards Sufa kibbutz, a small community just over a kilometre (mile) away, when they were spotted, it said.Warplanes killed at least one of the attackers, and rest ran back to the tunnel.

As the incursion began late Thursday, rockets lit up the sky, and the force of the shelling shook violently a seafront hotel in Gaza City housing scores of journalists.

The assault followed a brief humanitarian truce and urgent diplomatic appeals that Israel redouble its efforts to avoid harm to civilians.

US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Israel to limit collateral damage in Gaza and be "precise" in its ground assault on the enclave.

Kerry emphasised in a telephone call to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu "the need to avoid further escalation and to restore the 2012 ceasefire as soon as possible," said the State Department.