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JEBALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops and aircraft hit hard at Palestinian militants Saturday, killing at least 10 on the third bloody day of a massive Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip's largest refugee camp, as masked Hamas gunmen vowed more rocket attacks on Israeli towns.
About 2,000 soldiers have taken control of a 5-mile-deep chunk of northern Gaza to counter militants firing homemade rockets into Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said late Saturday that the army's mission was to stop the rocket fire "completely." He told Israel Radio, "This operation will continue as long as necessary."
At least 50 Palestinians and five Israelis have been killed during the offensive, launched after a Hamas rocket killed two Israeli preschoolers in a town near Gaza on Wednesday.
The fighting again plunged the encircled, poverty-stricken Gaza Strip into scenes of anguish. Mothers wept over their children's corpses, tank fire ripped through groups of militants and bystanders, stone-throwing youngsters faced off against well-armed Israeli troops and tires burned in the streets to confuse Israeli spy drones.
The offensive has brought Israeli troops into Jebaliya, the largest Palestinian refugee camp and one of the most crowded places in the world, with 106,000 people in half a square mile. Palestinian gunmen dug in, fortifying positions in Jebaliya and two other nearby towns also commandeered by Israel.
Late Saturday, Israeli forces pulled back briefly from the eastern edge of the Jebaliya camp, leaving behind a wide trail of destruction. To craft a new road into the camp, the Israelis leveled rows of small houses and flattened a farm. U.N. officials said dozens were left homeless.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat denounced the Israeli offensive as a "monstrous, criminal, inhumane attack," but his prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, warned against the consequences of firing missiles into Israel.
Qureia urged militant groups "to think about the higher national interest and not give Israel excuses to continue the aggression against our people in Gaza."
The buffer zone Israel created may help stop militants from firing homemade Qassam rockets into Israel. But any lull in rocket fire will likely only be temporary - unless Israel stays in the camp indefinitely.
Capt. Sharon Feingold, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said the 5-mile buffer zone matched the Qassam's current range.
The campaign, code-named "Days of Penitence," is by all accounts just getting started. Officials said the operation will be open-ended - Sharon's answer to the militant rocket attacks that threaten to turn public opinion against his planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
Yet the militant Hamas group on Saturday said Israel should not only expect more rockets - but longer-range ones that will strike deeper and deeper into the Jewish state.
In their first-ever news conference, members of the secretive Hamas military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, threatened to launch rockets at the coastal city of Ashkelon, which is 10 miles north of Gaza and has been out of reach of the rockets.