Gaza/Tel Aviv – Israel pounded Gaza from the air, sea and ground on the second full day of its ground offensive Monday, and Israeli leaders said the offensive will continue until the country’s aims are met.

Palestinians said Israeli shelling had killed at least 24 Gazan civilians in the Strip, 13 of them children of two families

The Israeli army refused to give updated casualty figures from the day’s fighting, saying a toll would only be released once a day, in the evening.

But according to Israeli media reports which could not therefore be confirmed, some 55 soldiers have been wounded since Saturday night, when the troops first crossed into the Gaza Strip in the second stage of Operation “Cast Lead,” sparked by a week of incessant air attack.

On Sunday, one Israeli soldier was killed.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni rebuffed European Union calls calls for a ceasefire, saying at a joint news conference with EU representatives that while Israel did not request world countries to help it fight Hamas, it wanted them “to let us continue (fighting) until we decide we’ve achieved our aims.”

She said Israel was fighting to create a “new equation” whereby it would no longer act with restraint when Hamas fired rockets from the Gaza Strip.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Monday, as he prepared to brief the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, that the Gaza offensive would continue since Israel had yet to achieve its objectives.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was also due in Israel for talks with officials, as the international community kept up its pressure for a ceasefire in the fighting, which began December 27, when Israel, after a week of massive rocket barrages from the Gaza Strip on southern Israeli towns and cities following the end of a nervous six-month truce, began a campaign of air strikes at Gaza targets.

Barak said Monday that Gaza city was partially surrounded by Israeli troops, who on Sunday took up positions which effectively cut the salient into two.

Local residents said tanks moved into the city’s Zaytoun neighbourhood from a base they set up at a former Jewish settlement, Netzarim, south of the metropolis.

Occupying a hill overlooking Gaza City and the camp, they also moved toward the eastern outskirts of Jabaliya, north of the city and one of the most crowded refugee camps in the enclave.

The troop’s advance sparked heavy clashes with local Hamas fighters.

According to Palestinian officials, at least 50 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the ground offensive after darkness on Saturday alone, while more than 200 have been injured.

During the fighting Monday a tank shell destroyed a house during fighting in Zaytoun neighbourhood before dawn, killing 13 members of one family, Assamouni, including the father, mother and eight children aged four to 15, hospital officials said. Ambulances were able to reach the house only after daylight, witnesses said.

A naval shell later also struck a house in western Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp Monday morning, killing a father, mother and their five children of another family, the Abu Aishais, the chief of the emergency room of Gaza City’s Shifa hospital, Haythem Dababish, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

In Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza city near the border with Israel, four more civilians died when a tank shell hit a mourning tent set up near the home of a paramedic killed Sunday, the town’s hospital said.

But keeping up the pressure, Israeli fighter jets meanwhile struck some 30 more targets in the coastal enclave overnight, the military said.

Israeli ground troops, which entered the strip late Saturday have also taken control of some areas from which Palestinian militants have been firing rockets at southern Israel.

Nonetheless, rockets continued to land Monday, with about 30 striking various locations in Israel, including one which slammed into a kindergarten, which was empty at the time, in the port city of Ashdod, about 30 kilometres north of the Strip.

Since Israel nine days ago launched Operation “Cast Lead” – aimed at curbing seven years of rocket and mortar attacks against its southern towns and villages – more than 532 Palestinians have been killed and at least 2,500 injured.

Four Israelis, three civilians and a soldier, have been killed in the 480 rockets and mortars which have been launched form the salient since the operation began, and 119 civilians wounded, in addition to many more treated for shock. (dpa)