Israel Steps Up Offensive with Deadly Gaza Bombings
By ISABEL
KERSHNER and FARES
AKRAMJULY 8, 2014
JERUSALEM
— Israel and its Palestinian adversaries in Gaza sharply escalated the latest
resurgence of hostilities on Tuesday, with the Israeli military conducting a
deadly aerial bombardment that targeted at least 160 Gazan sites, including
homes, and militants in the enclave responding with missile volleys aimed at
Israeli population centers, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The
Israeli military said Gaza militants fired more than 150 rockets and that
Israel’s missile defense system had thwarted at least 29 of them. More than 100
landed in Israel, the military said, but it was unclear whether they had caused
any casualties or serious damage.
Continue reading the main story
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Hamas,
the militant group that controls Gaza, took responsibility late Tuesday for
having fired up to 40 long-range rockets, some of them intercepted over Tel Aviv
and Jerusalem, where sirens sounded around 10 p.m. The Israeli military
confirmed that one rocket hit Hadera, a city about 72 miles north of Gaza, the
farthest range yet of the Gaza-based weapons.
Palestinian
witnesses and health officials said at least 23 people had been killed in the
Israeli attacks. They included seven in a house that was bombed after its
occupants had been warned in a cellphone call to leave, and six in another house
that members of Islamic Jihad, another militant group, said had belonged to one
of its commanders.
It
was the deadliest day so far in the latest escalation of the long-running
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, fed partly by the raw rage over the kidnapping and
killing of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank last month, a
massive security crackdown by Israel there, and the grisly kidnapping and
killing of a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem last week.
In
an ominous indication of further escalation, the Israeli government approved the
call-up of 1,500 reservists, mainly Home Front Command and aerial defense units,
and said later Tuesday that it had authorized the military to mobilize as many
as 40,000 additional reservists if necessary for a possible ground
invasion.
The
Israeli military also reported Tuesday evening, with little detail, that it had
defeated an effort to attack an army base in southern Israel by “several gunmen
armed with grenades” who had approached from the sea. The army said it had
killed four of the gunmen and was searching for others.
The
Israeli aerial barrage followed the firing of about 80 rockets out of Gaza on
Monday that reached deep into southern Israel.
Continue reading the main story
PLAY VIDEO|0:42
Israeli President on Increased Attacks
Israeli President on Increased Attacks
President Shimon Peres of Israel said his country
won’t tolerate missile strikes on its cities as it intensifies an aerial
offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
July 8, 2014. Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Witnesses
and Health Ministry officials in Gaza said the first of at least five deadly
Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday destroyed a car in Gaza City, killing three
unidentified occupants. The second was an Israeli bomb or rocket that witnesses
said had been fired by an F-16 warplane on a house in Khan Younis, a town in the
southeast part of Gaza, where seven occupants were found dead in the
wreckage.
A
telephoned warning was made to the owner of the targeted home in Khan Younis
five minutes before the bombing, apparently part of the Israeli military’s
stated effort to minimize unintended civilian casualties. Salah Kaware, 25, who
lived in the house, said that a call came to the cellphone of his brother’s
wife, and that the caller urged them to leave.
An
unidentified member of Hamas was reportedly killed in a third airstrike, in an
open space in central Gaza. Health officials in Gaza said at least four
residents had been killed in Israeli strikes elsewhere, including Gaza City and
the northern part of Gaza. Ashraf al-Qedra, a Health Ministry spokesman, said
more than 90 people had been wounded since the Israeli air assaults had
begun.
The
Israeli military said that its targets had included what it called a “terror
command center embedded within civilian infrastructure” utilized by a militant
in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
The
air campaign comes after three weeks of escalating confrontation, with rocket
attacks from Gaza against southern Israel and Israeli airstrikes on targets it
has described as concealed rocket launchers, training sites and weapons
manufacturing facilities associated with Hamas and other militant groups. Fury
on both sides over the teenage victims of Israel-Palestinian enmity have fed the
momentum.
Continue reading the main story
Cities Attacked in Israel and Gaza
Locations
hit or
targeted
since
Sunday
by ...
Tel
Aviv
Rishon
Letzion
Palestinian
rockets
Israeli
airstrikes
Gedera
Jerusalem
Ashod
Mediterranean
Sea
ISRAEL
Beit
Lahiya
Beit
Hanoun
Sderot
Gaza
City
WEST
BANK
GAZA
Netivot
Khan
Yunis
Rafah
Beersheba
10
MILES
Sources:
Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Israeli Defense Forces
Al
Aksa radio, run by Hamas, reported that residents received warnings a few
minutes before homes were bombed. Hamas’s military wing said in an emailed
statement that the bombing of the houses was “a serious escalation” that “will
oblige us to enlarge our attacks deeper into Israel.”
Early
on Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forcesannounced on Twitter that it had “commenced
Operation Protective Edge in Gaza against Hamas in order to stop the terror
Israel’s citizens face on a daily basis.”
In
a statement from his office, the Israeli defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, said,
“Hamas is leading this current confrontation to a place in which it aspires to
exact a heavy price from our home front.”
“In
the last few hours we have attacked with force and struck dozens of Hamas’s
assets,” Mr. Yaalon added, saying that the military was “continuing its
offensive effort in a manner that will exact a very heavy price from Hamas.” He
said the campaign was likely to last more than a few days.
In
a conference call with reporters, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the
Israeli military, said there would be “a gradual increase in the pressure we are
putting on Hamas.”
Continue reading the main story
PLAY VIDEO|0:37
Hamas Vows Vengeance for Israeli Strike
Hamas Vows Vengeance for Israeli Strike
Hundreds of mourners gathered in Gaza on Monday for
the funeral of two of the militants killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier the
same day, and a Hamas spokesman pledged to avenge their deaths.
July 7, 2014. Mohammed Salem/Reuters
Colonel
Lerner said that Israel was “watching to see what the reaction is with Hamas, to
see how they respond to our steps.” His comments echoed those of other officials
and experts, who have suggested that the initial blitz was meant as a warning,
with the hope that Hamas would rein in its fire to avoid a ground invasion.
Referring to such a development, Colonel Lerner said, “I don’t see that
happening immediately.”
Continue reading the main story
RECENT COMMENTS
TLC
24 minutes ago
I've
watched this wretched struggle my entire life. It's vile, whatever justification
one makes... and it makes me sick.
common sense
1 hour ago
Inevitably,
on ANY Israel-related article, there are commenters who blame everything and
anything on the "occupation". Or the "settlements"....
Guido
1 hour ago
War
is a terrible thing, never solved anything.As Churchill used to say:"Yaw, yaw is
better then war, war".
- SEE ALL COMMENTS
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The
hostilities erased an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire that ended eight days of
fierce cross-border fighting in November 2012. That came after a devastating,
three-week military offensive waged by Israel with air and ground forces against
militant groups in the winter of 2008-09.
Israeli
experts often describe Israel’s periodic campaigns in Gaza in terms of “mowing
the grass,” a kind of routine maintenance with the limited goals of curbing
rocket fire and restoring deterrence. Critics contend such an analogy is part of
what they call Israel’s policy of dehumanizing the Palestinians and their
aspirations.
“This
sort of maintenance needs to be carried out from time to time, perhaps even more
often,” Yoav Galant, a former commander of Israel’s southern district, including
the area around Gaza, told Army Radio.
In
Sderot, an Israeli town about a mile from the border with Gaza that was first
hit by rockets 13 years ago, residents in an open-air market ran with their
shopping bags to find shelter behind a truck or by a wall when an incoming
rocket alert sounded, then went back to buying groceries.
Limor
Porin, 42, a mother of two, said she had come to shop alone after leaving her
children at home close to a fortified room. “The family needs to eat,” she said,
as the loud booms from Gaza shook the town. “Life is stronger than fear.”
Away
from the market, the streets were empty as most people opted to stay
indoors.
At
first, radical Islamic groups that are not necessarily under Hamas’s control
increased the rocket fire against Israel. By Monday, however, Hamas was taking
responsibility for the attacks, which have put tens of thousands of Israelis on
alert and sent them rushing into safe rooms and bomb shelters.
Asked
about the repercussions of carrying out airstrikes in Gaza during the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan, Colonel Lerner said Hamas had created “an unacceptable,
unbearable reality” for one million Israelis in the range of the rockets fired
Monday. Gaza residents should understand, he said, that “this is the type of
Ramadan Hamas has brought on them.”
Ismail
Haniya, the Gaza-based deputy chief of the Hamas movement, called early Tuesday
for the Palestinians to strengthen internal unity to confront the Israeli
military offensive.
Hamas
recently entered into a reconciliation pact with the more moderate Palestinian
Authority leadership based in the West Bank, which has been urging calm.
Intended to heal a seven-year split between Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza, the pact has resulted in a new government, but little else so far.
Isabel
Kershner reported from Jerusalem, and Fares Akram from Gaza. Reporting was
contributed by Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem, Gabby Sobelman from Tel Aviv,
Rina Castelnuovo from Sderot, Israel, and Jodi Rudoren and Rick Gladstone from
New York.
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