GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel widened its deadliest-ever air offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers Sunday, pounding smuggling tunnels and a central prison, sending more tanks and artillery toward the Gaza border and approving a reserves call-up for a possible ground invasion.
Israeli leaders said they would press ahead with the Gaza campaign, despite enraged protests across the Arab world and Syria’s decision to break off indirect peace talks with the Jewish state. Israel’s foreign minister said the goal was to halt Gaza rocket fire on Israel for good but not to reoccupy the territory.
With the two-day death toll nearing 300 Sunday, crowds of Gazans breached the border wall with Egypt to escape the chaos. Egyptian forces, some firing into the air, tried to push them back into Gaza, and an official said one border guard was killed.
Hamas, in turn, fired rockets deeper than ever into Israel, near the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
Yet Hamas leaders were forced into hiding, most of the dead were from the Hamas security forces, and Israel’s military intelligence chief said Hamas’ ability to fire rockets had been reduced by 50 percent. Indeed, Hamas rocket fire dropped off sharply, from more than 130 on Saturday to just over 20 on Sunday. Still, Hamas continues to command 20,000 fighters.
Israel’s intense bombings — some 300 airstrikes since midday Saturday — wreaked unprecedented destruction in Gaza, reducing buildings to rubble.
After nightfall, Israeli aircraft attacked a building in the Jebaliya refugee camp next to Gaza City, killing a 14-month- old baby, a man and two women, Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said. Israeli aircraft also bombed the Islamic University and government compound in Gaza City, centers of Hamas power.
Witnesses saw fire and smoke at the university, counting six airstrikes there just after midnight.
Shlomo Brom, a former senior Israeli military official, said it was the deadliest force ever used in decades of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
European leaders called on Israel and Hamas to end the bloodshed.
French President Nicolas Sar kozy spoke Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads a rival government to Hamas in the West Bank, and condemned “the provocations that led to this situation as well as the disproportionate use of force.”
The White House was mum about the situation in Gaza on Sunday after speaking out expansively Saturday, blaming Hamas for provoking Israel’s retaliatory strikes.
In the most dramatic attacks Sunday, warplanes struck dozens of smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, cutting off a lifeline that had supplied Hamas with weapons and Gaza with commercial goods. The influx of goods had helped Hamas defy an 18-month blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt and was key to propping up its rule.
Gaza’s nine hospitals were overwhelmed. Hassanain, who keeps a record for the Gaza Health Ministry, said more than 290 people were killed over two days and more than 800 wounded.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which keeps researchers at all hospitals, said it had counted 251 dead by midday Sunday and that among them were 20 children under age 16 and nine women.
In Jerusalem, Israel’s Cabinet approved a call-up of 6,500 reserve soldiers, raising fears of an impending ground offensive.
Israel has doubled the number of troops on the Gaza border since Saturday and also deployed an artillery battery. It was not clear, though, whether the deployment was meant to pressure Hamas or whether Israel is determined to send ground troops.
Since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, after 38 years of full military occupation, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the territory to hunt militants. However, Israel has shied away from retaking the entire strip, for fear of getting bogged down in urban warfare.
Military experts said Israel would need at least 10,000 soldiers for a full-scale invasion.
