Israel launched air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza for a fourth consecutive day on Tuesday as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the bombardment "the first of several stages," suggesting that the conflict was far from resolution.
Israeli aircraft bombed a government compound, buildings linked to the Islamic University and the home of a top Hamas commander on Tuesday in a continued onslaught that left Gaza without electric power, according residents of the beleaguered enclave.
Gaza residents said Israeli warships in increasing numbers were visible from the enclave's Mediterranean shoreline, while Israeli tanks and troops massed on its land border. But despite the encirclement, Hamas militants remained defiant, launching 10 rockets into southern Israel on Tuesday. One hit an apartment house in the town of Sderot, injuring one person, witnesses said.
So far, more than 350 Palestinians - about 60 of them civilians - have been killed, according to the United Nations. Four Israelis - three civilians and a soldier - have died.
Israeli says its offensive, which began Saturday, is designed to neutralize the threat posed to southern Israel by Hamas rockets. As the air strikes continued Tuesday, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit told Israel Radio: "There is no room for a cease-fire.""The government is determined to remove the threat of fire on the south," he said, referring to rocket attacks on southern Israel by Hamas forces. "Therefore the Israeli army must not stop the operation before breaking the will of Palestinians, of Hamas, to continue to fire at Israel."
At a meeting with President Shimon Peres, Olmert, said the air attacks that began on Saturday were "the first of several stages approved by the security cabinet," according to Peres's office.
"The government is giving the military its full backing and the room for maneuver to achieve the goal set out by the government," Olmert said. But it remained uncertain whether Israel would follow the aerial attack with a ground offensive.
The military has created a two-mile war cordon along the Gaza border, with commanders saying that a ground force invasion was a distinct possibility but had not yet been decided upon.
The latest attacks came a day after Israeli jets struck Hamas's civic institutions - including the Islamic University, the Interior Ministry and a presidential guesthouse. Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Parliament on Monday that his country was waging an "all-out war with Hamas."
Israel has defined its aims relatively narrowly - the crippling of Hamas's ability to send rockets into Israel - but has not made clear if it means to topple the leadership of Hamas, which Israel and the United States brand as a terrorist organization.
Hamas sought to cast its fighters as martyrs in a continuing battle against Israel, the lone resisters in a Palestinian community divided between Gaza, where Hamas rules, and the West Bank, which is governed by the rival Fatah organization.
On Monday, Hamas fired more than 70 rockets, including a long-range one into the booming city of Ashdod some 18 miles, or 29 kilometers, from Gaza, where it hit a bus stop, killing a woman and injuring two other people. Earlier, a rocket hit nearby Ashkelon, killing an Israeli-Arab construction worker and wounding three others. The other dead Israelis, The Associated Press reported, were a civilian in the Negev desert and a soldier.
Thousands of Israelis huddled in shelters as the long-range rockets hit streets or open areas late in the night, the most serious display of Hamas's arsenal since the Israeli assault began.
Residents of Gaza pulled relatives from the rubble of prominent institutions leveled by waves of Israeli F-16 attacks, as hospitals struggled to keep up with the wounded and the dead and doctors scrambled for supplies. Hamas gunmen publicly shot suspected collaborators; families huddled around battery-powered radios, desperate for news.
Despite the hostilities, around 100 trucks laden with emergency food and medical supplies donated by international bodies awaited permission to enter Gaza to deliver their cargo. At sea, an Israeli naval vessel collided with a small boat carrying Palestinian sympathizers and medical supplies, forcing it to divert to Lebanon.
In Crawford, Texas, a spokesman for President Bush renewed calls on Monday for the parties to reach a cease-fire, but said Israel was justified in retaliating against Hamas's attacks. "Let's just take this one day at a time," said the spokesman, Gordon Johndroe.
Israel sent in some 40 trucks of humanitarian relief, including blood from Jordan and medicine. Egypt opened its border with Gaza to some similar aid and to allow some of the wounded through.
At Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the director, Dr. Hussein Ashour, said Monday that keeping his patients alive from their wounds was an enormous challenge. He said there were some 1,500 wounded people distributed among Gaza's nine hospitals with far too few intensive care units, equipped ambulances and other vital equipment.
Israeli warplanes continue to pound Hamas installations inside the Gaza strip. Speculation about a ground assault continues, but no ground assault has occurred as of this post. There has been much condemnation of Israel for over responding to the daily Hamas rocket attacks from the Gaza strip. I support the Israeli actions. If a hundred rockets were being launched into the USA from foreign soil, we would have taken quicker and stronger measures than the Israelis have.
ReplyDeleteWatch the action from a missile's eye view here. Missile's eye view