Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground war against the militant group Hamas after a week of intense airstrikes. The Israeli military said in a statement that the objective of the ground campaign was “to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas,” the militant Islamic group that controls the area, “while taking control of some of the rocket launching sites” that Hamas uses to fire at southern Israel.

The ground campaign brought new risks and the prospect of significantly higher casualties on both sides in a conflict that, even before the ground war started, had already taken the lives of more than 430 Palestinians and four Israelis.

While a ground campaign in densely populated Gaza is likely to increase the civilian death toll there, the Israeli Army also faces new threats. Hamas has had 18 months since Israel withdrew from the territory to smuggle in more lethal weapons against tanks and troops. Its more sophisticated arsenal has been on display over the last weeks, as it has launched scores of longer range rockets from Gaza into Israeli cities.

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