*Israel on Thursday said it was massing troops along the Gaza frontier andcalling up 9,000 reservists ahead of a possible ground invasion of theHamas-ruled territory, as the two bitter enemies plunged closer to all-outwar. Egyptian mediators rushed to Israel for cease-fire efforts but showedno signs of progress.*

The stepped-up fighting came as communal violence in Israel erupted for afourth night, with Jewish and Arab mobs clashing in the flashpoint town ofLod. The fighting took place despite a bolstered police presence ordered bythe nation’s leaders.

The four-day burst of violence has pushed Israel into uncharted territory —dealing with the most intense fighting it has ever had with Hamas whilesimultaneously coping with the worst Jewish-Arab violence inside Israel indecades. A late-night barrage of rocket fire from Lebanon that landed inthe sea threatened to open a new front along Israel’s northern border.

Saleh Aruri, an exiled senior Hamas leader, told London-based satellitechannel Al Araby early Friday that his group has turned down a proposal fora three-hour lull to allow for more negotiations toward a full cease-fire.He said Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations were leading the truce efforts.

Also early Friday, the Israeli military said air and ground troops struckGaza in what appeared to be the heaviest attacks yet. Masses of red flamesilluminated the skies as the deafening blasts from the outskirts of GazaCity jolted people awake. The strikes were so strong that screams of fearcould be heard from people inside the city, several kilometers away.

“I said we would extract a very heavy price from Hamas,” Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu said in a videotaped statement. “We are doing that, andwe will continue to do that with heavy force.”

The fighting broke out late Monday when Hamas, claiming to be the defenderof Jerusalem, fired a barrage of long-range rockets toward the city inresponse to what it said were Israeli provocations. Israel quicklyresponded with a series of airstrikes.

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