هل سيسلم مشعل رأس الضيف لـ "إسرائيل"؟
A Palestinian man stands in front of a damaged building following an Israeli airstrikes on the Jabaliya Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on August 20, 2014. (Photo: AFP - Mahmud Hams)
Published Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Fighting in the Gaza Strip continued for a second day after the collapse of truce talks, as Israeli forces killed a woman and a toddler in an assassination attempt targeting a Hamas military leader.
Charging that Israel had "opened a gateway to hell," Hamas's armed wing vowed to target Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport with rocket fire in order to retaliate for what Hamas said was an Israeli attempt to assassinate its top military leader, Mohammed al-Daif, in a Gaza City strike.
"The wife of the great leader was martyred with his daughter," in a strike Tuesday night, Hamas's exiled deputy leader Moussa Abu Marzuk wrote on Facebook while saying nothing about the fate of Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades commander Daif himself.
It was not clear whether Daif, who has survived previous Israeli attacks, had survived the strike that killed a woman and a two-year-old girl who media reports said may have been his wife and daughter.
Daif has topped Israel's wanted lists for years. He is currently believed to be a behind-the-scenes leader of Hamas' armed resistance campaign against Israel.
Palestinian health officials said the strike on a house in Gaza City killed three people but did not provide any details about the third victim.
The Israeli military would not specify any of the targets of some 30 attacks across Gaza it said was in response to rocket fire aimed at Israel.
Another air strike launched later on Wednesday morning killed seven members of a family in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, among them a pregnant woman and three children, Palestinian health officials said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
They named the dead as Rafat al-Lawh, 32, three of his children, his brother Mohammed, 21, and the woman, Nabilah al-Lawh, whose relationship to the others was not immediately clear.
In addition to the deaths, more than 50 people were wounded in the air strikes across Gaza, ordered after Israel claimed Palestinians fired rockets. Hamas initially denied firing any rockets, then claimed responsibility for shooting dozens as far as the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas.
There were no reported casualties but falling shrapnel damaged a car in Tel Aviv, and a building was damaged in southern Occupied Palestine. Some of the rockets were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome interceptor.
The violence shattered a 10-day period of calm since a first truce brokered by Egypt, about a month after the conflict flared on July 8.
Accusing Palestinians of breaking the truce with rocket fire eight hours before it was to have expired, Israel recalled its negotiators from truce talks in Cairo on Tuesday, leaving the fate of the Egyptian-brokered efforts to secure a lasting peace hanging in the balance.
Palestinian negotiators walked out of the talks later, blaming Israel for their failure. "Israel thwarted the contacts that could have brought peace," chief Palestinian negotiator Azzam al-Ahmad said.
"The ceasefire has collapsed and Israel is responsible," Ahmad said.
"We are leaving tomorrow, but we have not pulled out of negotiations," he told AFP, adding the Palestinians were waiting for Israel to respond to their truce proposal.
"We will not come back (to Cairo) until Israel responds," he said.
One of the Hamas officials, Ezzat al-Rishq, warned Israel "will not enjoy security so long as the Palestinian people do not."
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected Palestinian accusations.
"The Cairo process was built on a total and complete cessation of all hostilities and so when rockets were fired from Gaza, not only was it a clear violation of the ceasefire but it also destroyed the premise upon which the talks were based," Regev told Reuters.
An Israeli military spokesman said that, in an alleged response to the rockets, "terror targets” in the Gaza Strip were attacked.
Netanyahu ordered the immediate return of Israeli delegates to the indirect talks in Cairo on ending the Gaza war and charting the territory's future.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement condemning the breach of the ceasefire, adding he was "gravely disappointed by the return to hostilities" and urging the sides not to allow matters to escalate.
Egyptian mediators have been struggling to end the five-week-old Gaza conflict and seal a deal that would open the way for reconstruction aid to flow into the besieged territory of 1.8 million people, where thousands of homes have been destroyed.
Palestinians want Egypt and Israel to lift their crippling blockades of the Gaza Strip that predated the Israeli offensive.
Egypt, which is generally hostile to the Hamas movement and tend to take their cues from Israel, sees the Palestinian resistance group as a security threat.
A senior Palestinian official in Gaza said sticking points to an agreement have been Hamas's demands to build a seaport and an airport, which Israel wants to discuss only at a later stage.
Israel has called for the disarming of resistance groups in the enclave. Hamas has said that laying down its weapons is not an option.
Israel and Hamas did not meet face-to-face in Cairo, where Egyptian mediators shuttled between the parties in separate rooms.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says some 2,028 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the small, densely populated coastal territory since fighting started on July 8.
Sixty-four Israeli soldiers and three civilians, including one Thai citizen, have also been killed during the Israeli offensive.
(Reuters, AFP, Al-Akhbar)
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