|
 Israeli leaders, determined to end Palestinian rocket attacks deep
into the Jewish state, have hinted that they could order the first
ground invasion of the coastal strip in five years. Some 20,000 army
reservists have been mobilized.
The Israeli military said it launched fresh naval and air strikes
early on Friday, giving no further details.
An air strike on a house in Gaza City killed a man described by
Palestinian officials as a doctor and pharmacist. Medics and
residents said an Israeli aircraft also bombed a three-storey house
in the southern town of Rafah, killing three people.
The salvoes into Israel have so far caused no fatalities, due in
part to interception by Israel's partly-U.S. funded Iron Dome aerial
defense system. However, eight people were wounded, one in serious
condition, by a rocket on Friday that hit a fuel tanker at a petrol
station in Israel's port city of Ashdod, an ambulance service
spokesman said. Firefighters doused the blaze.
Three rockets were intercepted over the Tel Aviv metropolitan area
on Friday morning, the military said. Fire was also exchanged across
Israel's northern border. Lebanese security sources said two rockets
were fired into northern Israel on Friday but they did not know who
had fired them. Israel responded with artillery fire.
Israel's chief military spokesman, Brigadier-General Motti Almoz,
said one rocket fell near Kibbutz Kfar Yuval and that there were no
casualties or damage.
The Palestinians said Israeli tanks fired shells east of Rafah,
naval forces sent shells into a security compound in Gaza City and
aircraft bombed positions near the borders with Egypt and Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement on
Thursday: "So far the battle is progressing as planned, but we can
expect further stages in future. Up to now, we have hit Hamas and
the terror organizations hard and as the battle continues we will
increase strikes at them."
The four day offensive is the deadliest since October 2012, when
around 160 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed during an
Israeli campaign to punish Hamas for missile attacks. That conflict
was eventually halted with Egyptian mediation.
If Israel launches a ground invasion of Gaza, it would be the first
since a war in early 2009 when 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis
were killed.
"We have long days of fighting ahead of us," Defence Minister Moshe
Yaalon said.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri sounded a defiant note, when asked
about Yaalon's remarks. "Our backs are to the wall and we have
nothing to lose," he said. "We are ready to battle until the end."
The Israeli military said some 550 projectiles have been fired at
Israel since Tuesday by Islamist group Hamas, the dominant force in
Gaza, and by other militant groups.
Some rockets have landed more than 100 km (60 miles) from Gaza.
Sirens sounded as far north as the Israeli city of Haifa on Friday,
though police said no remnants of rockets, which Hamas said it had
fired, were found.
The military added that it had targeted some 210 sites in the Gaza
Strip over the past 24 hours, among them "long-range rocket
launchers, Hamas leadership facilities and terror and smuggling
tunnels".
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CHILDREN AMONG THE DEAD
Medical officials in Gaza said at least 70 civilians, including
children, were among those killed since the offensive began on
Tuesday.
U.S. President Barack Obama told Netanyahu by telephone on Thursday
that the United States was willing to help negotiate a ceasefire,
the White House said. A spokeswoman for U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry said: "Nobody wants to see a ground invasion." French
President Francois Hollande voiced his concern at the civilian
deaths and called for a truce. Hollande and Kerry both spoke to
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the
West Bank and entered a power-sharing deal with Hamas in April after
years of feuding.
Kerry also spoke to Egypt's foreign minister in an attempt to get
Cairo to use its influence to calm the situation, State Department
spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. Kerry, she said, had also "reached out"
to Qatar.
Israel's offensive followed a build-up in violence after three
Israeli students were killed in the occupied West Bank last month
and a Palestinian youth was killed in a suspected revenge attack in
Jerusalem.
Palestinian rocket fire escalated after Israeli forces arrested
hundreds of Hamas activists in the West Bank while searching for the
youths, who Israel said were abducted and killed by Hamas.
Israel says it has struck more than 1,000 targets in Gaza from the
air and the sea, including militant commanders' homes, which it
describes as command and control centers.
Hamas says at least 200 houses have been bombed by Israel since
Tuesday and that most of the fatalities have come as a result of the
house bombings.
Owners of some of the targeted homes have received telephoned
warnings from Israel to get out. In other cases, so-called
"knock-on-the-door" missiles, which do not carry explosive warheads,
were first fired as a signal to evacuate. Scenes of families fleeing
their homes have played out daily.
Residents said in Friday's attack in Rafah no warning was issued and
the victims were asleep when their house was bombed.
(Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall in Beirut; Writing by Maayan
Lubell and Ori Lewis; Editing by Peter Graff)
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