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Israel said it had deployed ground troops in its Hamas assault on the Gaza Strip after five days of relentless bombing aimed at the Palestinian militant group that has fired more than 1,500 rockets at the Jewish state, the Israeli army said. .
“Israeli Defense Forces air and ground troops are currently attacking the Gaza Strip,” the army said in a statement. The scale of the Israeli incursion was not immediately clear.
But the deployment of Israeli troops on Palestinian territory would mark a significant escalation of the five-day conflict and raise the prospect of a large-scale Israeli ground invasion, the first since a conflict in 2014 killed 2,000 Palestinians and 72 Israelis.
Artillery bombardment was heard far inside the Gaza Strip shortly before the deployment of Israeli troops by IDF into the territory, witnesses said. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the militant group took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.
Israel five days ago launched a rain of airstrikes against militants in Gaza and killed 103 Palestinians, including 38 women and children, according to health officials in the strip. A total of 580 were injured.
Despite the bombing, Hamas has continued to launch rocket salvos heavily at Israel and on Thursday caused Israeli authorities to redirect international flights from Tel Aviv. Militants have killed seven Israelis this week, including a soldier and a child.
Israel had positioned additional troops, including two infantry brigades and one armored vehicle, near the Gaza border and summoned an additional 9,000 reservists on Thursday.
Without any cessation of violence, Egyptian officials were trying to get a ceasefire, a Western diplomat said. Hady Amr, the top U.S. State Department official on Israeli and Palestinian affairs, also addressed Israel as part of attempts by the Biden administration to escalate the crisis.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Thursday that Washington was deeply committed to efforts to reduce the situation. Russian President Vladimir Putin and UN Secretary-General António Guterres also called for an end to the fighting on Thursday. But the Western diplomat said Israel had previously rejected efforts by Egypt, which shares borders with Israel and Gaza, to stop fighting.
Earlier, Israel invaded Gaza during the wars with Hamas in 2009 and 2014, operations that devastated the poor Mediterranean strip and the conflicts killed more than 1,000 and 2,000 Palestinians respectively. But Hamas has been able to maintain a large arsenal of mostly homemade rockets. Since the 2014 war, Israel has been reluctant to send troops to Gaza for fear of its soldiers being abducted and other risks associated with such operations.
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