JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to press ahead with a vast military offensive in the northern Gaza Strip that has left more than 60 people dead in five days, almost all of them Palestinians.
"This is not a short operation. We should act for as long as the danger exists," Sharon told army radio in his first public comments on the operation.
The Palestinians lashed out at the international community for its "silence" in the face of the incursion, the largest in the impoverished Gaza Strip since the start of the Palestinian uprising four years ago.
Sharon said he had "given the order to change the situation on the Gaza front, to hit at the terrorists, their leadership and those who send them, along with those responsible for making weapons".
A total of 62 people have been killed in fighting since late Tuesday when the army launched the "Days of Penitence" operation in a bid to prevent rocket attacks by militants. The dead include 59 Palestinians, both civilians and gunmen, and three Israelis, including two soldiers.
The death toll has swept past that of a May operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 40 Palestinians were killed as Israel sought to destroy cross-border weapons-smuggling tunnels.
Overnight, three members of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, were killed in the densely populated Jabaliya area of the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources said,
An army spokeswoman said troops had shot dead a man preparing to launch an anti-tank missile, while another group of soldiers had opened fire on a group of gunmen who were trying to booby-trap a road.
Despite the spiralling bloodshed, which escalated Wednesday after a rocket killed two Israeli toddlers in southern Israel, Sharon said the operation would continue until troops stamped out the ability of militants to fire missiles at Israel.
"We must broaden the area of action to push back the rocket launchers so Jewish areas along the border are no longer within their range," Sharon said, adding the aim was also to halt fire on Jewish settlements in Gaza, both in the immediate term and during implementation of his so-called disengagement plan.
Under terms of the plan, all Jewish settlers and troops are to be evacuated from the Gaza Strip by the end of 2005.
The Palestinian cabinet on Saturday declared a state of emergency, with Yasser Arafat appealing for international help against the "criminal and racist" Israeli campaign.
On Sunday, the Palestinian parliament was holding an emergency session, with MPs mulling a proposal to give up one day's salary for victims of the raids.
Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat had harsh words for the international community's silence over the bloodshed.
"The absence of international reaction is encouraging Ariel Sharon to assert that the operation will continue, although the situation is getting worse and the Palestinian people are enduring massacres," Erakat told AFP, warning it would lead to "a flareup in violence and extremism".
Over the weekend, Egypt and France Spain, Switzerland, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Canada in expressing concern at the scope of the operation.
Israel's archfoe Iran said the Jewish state was guilty of "genocide."
But the United States has refrained from criticising Israel, saying only that it should use "proportional force" and avoid civilian casualties.
A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed satisfaction that, "until now, there has not been any intense international pressure on Israel to stop this operation, as the Palestinians would wish".
But he admitted the situation could change "if many Palestinian civilians became victims of collateral damage".
Amos Gilad, head of the defence ministry's political bureau, also said the operation would continue "as until now, the majority of Palestinians killed were terrorists".
In other violence, eight Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets in Beit Awwa village in the southern West Bank after demonstrators protesting against Israel's construction of a vast barrier across the territory, clashed with Israeli forces, medics and security sources said.