Israeli soldiers in tanks and bulldozers dug in a mile-wide strip of eastern Gaza on Saturday, the twelfth day of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge and the third day of its ground attack in the densly populated Gaza Strip.<br /><br />Palestinian officials say 65 Palestinian people have been killed since Thursday. Fifteen of those killed were under the age of 18.<br /><br />The IDF’s (Israel Defence Forces) mission to destroy tunnels is to prevent the movement of Palestinian militants and remove their ability to conduct cross-border raids.<br /><br />The IDF says it has attacked more than 300 targets in Gaza and located 13 tunnels, so far. Many extend across the border between Gaza and Israel.<br /><br />Hamas released a video purporting to show fighters from its military wing moving about inside some of the very tunnels Israel is targeting. <br /><br />The group refuses to hold fire unless embargoes by Israel and neighbouring Egypt are eased and other demands are met. <br /><br />Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that his instructions to the Israeli army, “with the approval of the security cabinet is, to prepare for the possibility of a widening, a significant widening of the ground operation.”<br /><br />According to Israeli media reports, residents of a central Gaza refugee camp received recorded phone messages from the IDF on Saturday morning instructing them to evacuate to another part of the territory.<br /><br />The United Nations said that more than 50,000 Palestinian people have taken refuge from the Israeli attacks in its Gaza shelters.
