GAZA CITY — Israeli armored forces backed by aircraft thrust into the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing five Palestinians a day before Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were to begin laying the groundwork for peace talks. Another Palestinian was killed in an airstrike.
Israeli army officials described the operation as a routine action against Gaza-based militants who fire rockets across the border into southern Israel. Palestinian officials said the incursion could undermine the talks before they start.
In a separate encounter, an Israeli airstrike Tuesday killed an Islamic Jihad fighter in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
Palestinians said Israeli troops had taken positions 2 miles inside Gaza, which would be the military’s deepest penetration since Hamas took sole control of the coastal strip in June. However, the Israeli army spokesman said troops moved less than a mile into Gaza.
Israel has carried out limited incursions and numerous airstrikes along the edges of Gaza, from which militants have fired more than 2,000 rockets and mortar rounds into Israel since Jan. 1.
Israeli defense officials drew up plans to reduce the flow of Israeli-generated electricity into Gaza in response to the persistent rocket attacks, but they held off this month after the nation’s Supreme Court asked for a fuller explanation of how the action would avoid harming civilians.
Hawkish Israeli politicians have urged a broad military offensive to target rocket teams and a stockpile of smuggled arms that Israeli intelligence officials say is increasingly potent and of longer range.
But troops could become bogged down in bloody urban fighting, and a major offensive might torpedo the peace effort.
Prodded into talks by the Bush administration, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have vowed to try to reach a peace agreement by the end of 2008. Abbas could lose backing among Palestinians for continued talks if Israel moves into Gaza with great force.
Abbas spokesman Nabil abu Rudaineh said Israel’s actions Tuesday were aimed at “thwarting and obstructing” the planned peace talks.
Negotiation teams led by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia are to meet at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem today in a session billed as the formal start of negotiations after the U.S.-hosted peace conference last month in Annapolis, Md.
However, the meeting is expected to be devoted mainly to setting up a framework and procedures for talks, rather than bargaining over issues at the center of the conflict.
