BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip (AFP) - The Israeli army expanded its massive operation in northern Gaza as an 11-year-old schoolgirl became the latest victim of a fortnight of spiralling violence in the Palestinian territory.
Dozens of tanks and army bulldozers rolled into the town of Beit Lahiya in the early hours as the focus of the so-called Operation Days of Penitence, which has now claimed the lives of 114 Palestinians, shifted north from the nearby Jabaliya refugee camp.
The vehicles flattened several buildings and fields as they entered the area, an AFP correspondent reported, but failed to prevent Palestinian militants from firing more rockets towards Israel.
Colonel Eyal Eizenberg, commander of the Israeli army`s elite Givati infantry regiment, told military radio his troops met significant resistance as they moved into the town overnight.
"Explosive charges were operated against us and we were also met with anti-tank rockets which hit one of our (armoured) vehicles," said the colonel. "There were also shots fired against our troops from the direction of mosques."
Palestinian security sources had reported overnight that a member of the armed wing of the militant Hamas movement was killed and at least two other people were wounded when a helicopter fired a missile in Beit Lahiya.
The operation, the deadliest offensive since the start of the Palestinian uprising four years ago, is aimed at putting an end to the firing of rockets from northern Gaza into southern Israel. Two children were killed in the border town of Sderot in late September.
Israeli military sources said two Qassams had been launched from Beit Lahiya on Wednesday. One landed close to a kibbutz in southern Israel while a second landed inside Gaza, although there were no reports of injuries.
Israel is also targeting Hamas` leadership in the West Bank where one of its most senior commanders was arrested on Wednesday.
Imad Qawasmeh, who has been held responsible by Israel for masterminding a double suicide bombing in the town of Beersheva in August, was picked up in an army operation in the town of Hebron.
However the Gaza operation has come in for heavy international criticism, with children making up around a quarter of the victims.
Medical sources said Wednesday that an 11-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl who was wounded by Israeli army gunfire while sitting at her desk in a UN-run school in Gaza had died of her injuries.
Ghadir Mkhemar had been wounded in the chest on Tuesday when shots were fired into a classroom at her school in Khan Yunis run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Another 10-year-old girl was also killed last month after being shot in an UNRWA-run school in Khan Yunis.
And the Israeli army said Wednesday it had suspended an officer under investigation for allegedly firing multiple shots at a Palestinian schoolgirl who had already been gunned down in southern Gaza last week.
An UNRWA spokesman called the latest death "horrific".
"Schools should be havens of peace. Outside the schools, the pace of child deaths in Gaza has been accelerating terribly in recent weeks," he told AFP.
"The most basic right of the child, to life, is now being violated almost every day."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was to meet Wednesday with leaders of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party in order to cobble together a majority for his Gaza pullout plan.
The premier suffered an embarrassing setback earlier in the week when MPs voted against his speech marking the start of the winter parliamentary session which was centred around his plan.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian security chief related to Yasser Arafat escaped a suspected assassination attempt late Tuesday when a car bomb blew up outside his headquarters in Gaza City, witnesses said.
Musa Arafat was pulling out of the compound in a convoy when the bomb exploded, injuring one person slightly.
Palestinian sources said they believed the attack was the result of internal battles in the impoverished and lawless Gaza Strip and did not involve Israel, which has been waging a massive deadly onslaught in the area for two weeks.