JERUSALEM, (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has snubbed the advice of his army chiefs and ordered the continuation of a massive military offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, media reports say.
Senior officers had told Sharon that Operation Days of Penitence, which has claimed the lives of 110 Palestinians since it was launched on September 28, had now met its main objective and managed to halt rocket attacks on southern Israel, according to public radio and the Haaretz newspaper.
But Sharon, keen to deliver a decisive blow to Gaza-based militant factions before next year's planned pullout from the territory, told top brass that they must push on with the operation.
Two children were killed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot late last month by a Qassam rocket, named after the armed wing of the radical Hamas movement.
Much of the operation has been centered around the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the territory. But Haaretz cited senior officers as saying troops were being exposed to an unnecessarily high risk by remaining in the densely populated camp and that rocket launchers had also been moved from Jabalya.
The death toll from Days of Penitence, which is the army's deadliest offensive in Gaza, rose to 110 on Monday after two more Palestinians, including a militant, died of injuries they had sustained the day before.