Israeli troops tried to push deeper into Gaza City on Tuesday, with the army focused on the south-western Gaza City neighborhood of Tel Al-Hawwah overnight Monday, according to Palestinian Ma'an News Agency.
Ma'an said that most of the fatalities since Tuesday morning are from clashes in the Zayton and Tel Al-Hawwah neighborhoods.
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Palestinians inspect their houses destroyed by Israeli strikes in Gaza City on Jan. 13, 2009. Israeli soldiers fought heavy battles with local militants in Gaza early Tuesday. Medics said Monday that over 900 people have been killed and more than 4,100 others wounded since Israeli military operation on Dec. 27, 2008. [Wissam Nassar/Xinhua]
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The report said Israeli troops invaded and searched several homes in the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tel Al-Hawwah, gathering groups of soldiers on the roofs of homes and engaged in battles with local resistance.
The Israeli army's ground attacks were preceded by air and tankfire. Missiles struck several houses in Tel Al-Hawwah, and many residents were fleeing their homes in the hill-top area overlooking the Gaza shore.
The residents at the eastern slope of Tel Al-Hawwah were quoted as saying that intensive shelling took place near the Al-Mujtama college, which was demolished itself in the shelling. Residents are fleeing this residential neighborhood as well, many not knowing which areas in Gaza City are safe.
Mo'aweya Hassanein, head of Emergency and Ambulance Services in the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said he had received 11 bodies at the Gaza City hospital since dawn, but said there were certainly more bodies in the streets and beneath bombed buildings who cannot be reached because of ongoing Israeli attacks.
As the massive Israeli attacks, aimed at preventing the Palestinian militants from firing rockets at southern Israeli communities, enter the 18th day, the death toll of Palestinians has risen to about 930, with more than 4,100 injured.