Israel blasts Gaza Strip, killing 20

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel unleashed a furious sequence of air strikes on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing 20 Palestinians including several civilians and children as well as Islamist militants involved in firing rockets at Israel.

The Red Cross and European Union called for restraint as the two-day death toll rose to 33. These included one Israeli, whose death on Wednesday was the first such killing since May, four Palestinian boys who medics said were playing soccer on Thursday, and a baby killed in the bombing of a Hamas ministry.

Dozens more people were wounded in the crowded territory and explosions and gunfire continued well after nightfall.

The bloodiest exchanges in months came days before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returns to the region hoping to invigorate limping peace negotiations between Israel and the anti-Hamas Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank.

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other officials offered mixed signals on any major ground offensive, residents said soldiers raided homes in southern Gaza and a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a sworn enemy of Hamas, accused Israel of trying to wreck the U.S.-backed peace process.

Rice, who met Olmert in Tokyo, would not be drawn on whether she had joined calls for him not to use "disproportionate force" but said Hamas must stop the rockets. Some of those hit the city of Ashkelon, in an escalation that saw the use of Soviet Katyusha missiles with longer range than locally improvised weapons.

Asked about the four boys, aged 10 to 15, who were killed on Thursday, the Israeli army said it had targeted a rocket squad. In another strike, on a van laden with soft drinks and snacks, it killed a munitions maker from a militant group allied to Hamas. Two power company workers died when their van was hit.

At least 11 of those killed on Thursday were militants. The bloodshed took to 66 the number of Gazans killed in Israeli action so far in February, passing the 62 deaths in all of January.

Though many were gunmen, it is a toll Palestinians and Israel's critics say shows a disproportionate response to daily rocket fire that has caused few casualties in Israel while nonetheless badly disrupting life in border towns and villages.

Amid Israeli outcry over the death of a compatriot who was father to four children, the Foreign Ministry spokesman warned the rockets "may leave us no choice" but to send back in troops, who quit Gaza in 2005 and have since mounted only brief raids.

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said: "The Palestinians are bringing this on themselves, because many Palestinians will be hurt. There will be no other choice ... We will act."

But Olmert, certainly aware an invasion would mean many more casualties both among his own troops and the 1.5 million Palestinian civilians, sounded more cautious: "We are at the height of the battle," he said in Tokyo. But he added that the war was a "long process" and he had "no magic formula".

RICE CALLS FOR END TO ATTACKS

Asked if she had urged Olmert not to use disproportionate force, Rice said: "That's not a good way to address this issue. The issue is that the attacks, rocket attacks, need to stop."

Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said in a statement: "The Israeli government ... aims to destroy the peace process".