Intense fighting reported as Israeli troops cross into Gaza

[DogPoundPup]

Source: Yahoo / McClatchey

JERUSALEM - Israeli tanks and soldiers punched into the Hamas -led Gaza Strip on Saturday night as the nation's eight-day-old military campaign to destabilize the hard-line Islamist rulers moved into a more volatile phase.

Backed by Apache helicopters, Navy warships and artillery batteries, the Israeli ground forces moved into northern Gaza in an attempt to seize control of open fields and orchards along the border that have been regularly used by Palestinian militants to fire crude rockets into southern Israel .

Residents in northern Gaza hiding in their homes said Israeli soldiers were quickly confronted by Palestinian militants that had been lying in wait. Palestinians in the area reported intense firefights taking place but there was no immediate word on fighters killed on either side.

The ground offensive sets the stage for a deadly showdown that could significantly shake-up Middle East political dynamics by either cowing hard-line Hamas ideologues into moderating their views or propelling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a deadly new spiral of unpredictable violence.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090103/wl_mcclatchy/3136548_1