Smoke trails of rockets fired from near Gaza City towards Israel. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
The military conflict in Gaza has continued into Wednesday following a six-hour respite in which Israel halted its aerial bombardment of the coastal enclave after accepting an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire.
Hamas rejected the plan, continuing its rocket fire throughout the day and killing an Israeli citizen at the Erez border crossing, the first Israeli fatality of the conflict. The dead man was understood to be a civilian volunteer delivering food donations to soldiers in the area. An Israeli soldier was also lightly wounded.
Attacks in the early hours of Wednesday killed at least seven Palestinians, Gaza health officials said, and destroyed the house of Mahmoud Zahar – believed to be in hiding elsewhere – in the first apparent targeting of a top Hamas political leader.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had sent out warning messages to residents in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate their homes by 8am ahead of renewed attacks. The Palestinians' Gaza interior ministry told people not to heed the messages and dismissed them as psychological warfare
The first Israeli death added to growing pressure on the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, from hardline cabinet colleagues to escalate the offensive. On Tuesday the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, advocated a "full takeover of the Gaza Strip" – effectively a re-occupation of territory evacuated by Israeli troops and settlers in 2005. "Israel must go all the way," he said. His former deputy, Danny Ayalon, suggested Israeli soldiers were poised to invade Gaza.
After an Israeli security cabinet meeting on Tuesday night, Netanyahu issued a statement saying the military operation would continue. "Hamas chose to continue the campaign and it will pay for this decision," he said. "Whoever tries to attack the citizens of Israel, Israel will strike at him. When there is no ceasefire – our answer is fire."
Later, the Israeli military warned 100,000 Gaza residents to evacuate their homes or risk being caught in further bombardment.
However, any escalation of military action will increase the risk of Israeli casualties and could lead Israel beyond its stated goal of weakening, but not annihilating, Hamas.
Although most international criticism was directed at Hamas on Tuesday for refusing to join Israel in the proposed "de-escalation", Palestinian sympathisers suggested that the Egyptian ceasefire plan could be a tactical ruse to give Israel cover for intensifying its military campaign.
"Hamas's rejection of the ceasefire gives Israel full legitimacy to expand the operation to protect our people," said Netanyahu as bombing resumed. Gaza was hit by at least 30 air strikes on Tuesday afternoon. The additional strikes on Wednesday morning pushed the total Palestinian death toll above 200.
The UN described destruction in Gaza over the past eight days as immense, with 560 homes destroyed and thousands damaged. About 17,000 people have sought refuge in schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The Red Cross said hundreds of thousands of people were without water after Gaza's supply was devastated, and warned of the risk of disease from contamination and overflowing sewage.
Meanwhile, sirens sounded across Tel Aviv, central and southern Israel, warning residents to take to bomb shelters in the face of rocket fire from Gaza.
The six-hour pause in Israeli air strikes began at 9am on Tuesday as part of a proposal unveiled by Egypt on Monday intended to lead to a full ceasefire and talks on a long-term agreement.
Hamas rejected the plan, saying it had not been consulted and its demands were not being met. According to the Israeli military, more than 50 rockets were fired into Israel before air strikes were resumed.
But there were inconsistent messages from Hamas. Its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, robustly rejected the proposal as a "surrender", saying "our battle with the enemy continues and will increase in ferocity and intensity". But Hamas spokesmen in Gaza said the Islamist group had not received an official ceasefire proposal, and its demands must be met before it lays down arms.
Mussa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader based in Cairo, said on social media that the organisation was "still in consultations. The movement has yet to take an official position on the initiative."
Hamas is deeply distrustful of the Egyptian regime, although Cairo has been a key player in brokering ceasefires to end previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas. President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has since outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas's ideological parent organisation.
Hamas and other Palestinian leaders are also likely to be suspicious of Middle East envoy Tony Blair, acting as an interlocutor between Israel and Egypt. He is seen as a defender of Israel's interests.
Hamas has set out its key demands for ending rocket fire, which include the lifting of Israel's eight-year blockade on the Gaza Strip, the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, and the release of more than 50 Palestinian prisoners recently rearrested by Israel after freeing them in exchange for the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, who urged all parties to support a ceasefire, said in Vienna: "I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in firing rockets in multiple numbers in the face of a goodwill effort to offer ceasefire."
Despite the resumption of action, Israel might be anxious about getting drawn deeper into a confrontation in Gaza. It might have calculated that its bombardment has achieved its goal of weakening Hamas. It does not want to deal a fatal blow to Hamas, for fear that more radical groups would fill a power vacuum.
Source - theguardian.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment