GAZA CITY — Widening its offensive against the Hamas-dominated government, Israel early today bombarded the Palestinian Interior Ministry building in downtown Gaza City, setting it ablaze. The airstrike came a day after Israeli troops detained more than two dozen Hamas legislators and Cabinet ministers.
Israel's roundup of Hamas elected officials, together with the targeting of a Hamas ministry for the first time since Israel moved tanks and troops into the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, brought a complex new dimension to the standoff over a captured Israeli soldier.
The detentions drew expressions of international concern, and even Hamas' rival, the Fatah faction, weighed in with sharp criticism, calling the arrests an effort by Israel to topple the Palestinian administration.
Israeli troops and armor remained massed at a disused airport at Gaza's southern tip, but the military held off Thursday on what had been an expected ground offensive in northern Gaza, instead aiming intense artillery barrages at the territory's northern swath.
In addition to the office of Interior Minister Said Siyam, a Hamas loyalist in charge of security forces, among them a controversial Hamas-dominated police unit, targets in today's predawn airstrikes included a building the Israeli military said was used by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia with links to Fatah.
Israeli officials indicated that the delay in moving troops and armor into northern Gaza was at the behest of Egyptian mediators, who reportedly asked for more time to try to achieve a peaceful resolution of the crisis. Egypt reported progress toward reaching terms for the soldier's release, but Israeli officials said they could not confirm any accord was in sight.
No deaths had been reported since the offensive began, but human rights groups have warned of a looming humanitarian emergency after airstrikes on Gaza knocked out infrastructure, including the Palestinian territory's main power transformer, and left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity and with sharply curtailed water service.
There was no word on the fate of 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit, whose seizure Sunday by Palestinian militants sparked Israel's first large-scale incursion into Gaza since it pulled out of the seaside strip more than nine months ago.
The Popular Resistance Committees, one of the militant factions purportedly holding Shalit, refused Thursday to offer any assurances that the missing soldier was still alive.
