|
| Mourners gather at a funeral at a mosque in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, July 15, 2014, for Sarah Omar el-Eid, 4, bottom, and her father, Omar, 26, center, and her uncle Jihad, 27, top. The three were killed by an Israeli strike late Monday. Egypt presented a cease-fire plan Monday to end a week of heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip that has left at least 185 people dead, and both sides said they were seriously considering the proposal. |
GAZA CITY, Gaza
Strip (AP) -- Israel resumed its heavy bombardment of Gaza on
Tuesday and warned that Hamas "would pay the price" after the Islamic
militant group rejected an Egyptian truce plan and instead unleashed
more rocket barrages at the Jewish state.
Late
Tuesday, the military urged tens of thousands of residents of northern
and eastern Gaza to leave their homes by Wednesday morning, presumable a
prelude to air strikes there.
Rocket fire
from killed an Israeli man Tuesday, the first Israeli fatality in eight
days of fighting. In Gaza, 197 people were killed and close to 1,500
wounded so far, Palestinian officials said, making it the deadliest
Israel-Hamas confrontation in just over five years.
The Egyptian proposal, initially accepted by Israel, had been the first attempt to end the fighting.
It
unraveled in less than a day, a sign that it will be harder than before
to reach a truce. Hamas does not consider Egypt's current rulers - who
deposed a Hamas-friendly government in Cairo a year ago - to be fair
brokers.
Violence is bound to escalate in coming days.
Hamas
believes it has little to lose by continuing to fight, while a truce on
unfavorable terms could further weaken its grip on the Gaza Strip, a
territory it seized in 2007. Underscoring that position, Gaza militants
fired more than 120 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel on Tuesday,
during what Egypt had hoped would be a period of de-escalation.
A
particularly heavy barrage came around dusk, with more than 40 rockets
hitting Israel in just a few minutes, including one that fell on an
empty school. TV footage showed children cowering behind a wall in Tel
Aviv's main square as sirens went off. An Israeli man in his 30s was
killed near the Gaza border when he was delivering food to soldiers -
the first Israeli death.
Hamas' defiance
prompted Israeli warnings. In an evening address aired live on TV, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that after Hamas' rejection of the
truce, Israel had "no choice" but to respond more forcefully.
"Hamas
chose to continue fighting and will pay the price for that decision,"
he said. "When there is no cease-fire, our answer is fire."
After
holding its fire for six hours, the Israeli air force resumed its heavy
bombardment of Gaza, launching 33 strikes from midafternoon, the
military said. In all, Israeli aircraft struck close to 1,700 times
since July 8, while Gaza militants fired more than 1,200 rockets at
Israel.
Netanyahu said Israel would have liked
to see a diplomatic solution, but would keep attacking until rocket
fire stops and Hamas' military capabilities are diminished. The Israeli
leader said he would "widen and increase" the campaign against Hamas,
but it remains unclear if that will include a ground offensive.
Israel
has warned it might send troops into Gaza and has massed thousands of
soldiers on the border.
However, entering Gaza would likely drive up
casualties on both sides. Israel has hesitated in the past to embark on
ground operations for fear of getting entangled in the densely populated
territory of 1.7 million.
Late Tuesday, the
Israeli military told residents of the northern town of Beit Lahiya and
the Gaza City neighborhoods of Shijaiyah and Zeitoun in automated phone
calls to leave their homes by early Wednesday.
Sami
Wadiya, a resident of one of the areas likely to be targeted, said he
would not leave his home. "We know it's risky, but there are no secure
places to go to," he said.
In Washington,
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Israel has the right to
defend itself, but that "no one wants to see a ground war."
"Our effort remains focused on seeing if we can return to a cease-fire," she said.
The
current round has been the deadliest since a major Israeli military
offensive in the winter of 2008-09. The previous outbreak of
cross-border violence, in 2012, eventually ended with the help of Egypt,
at the time seen as a trusted broker by Hamas.
Hamas
officials Tuesday rejected the current Egyptian plan as is, noting they
weren't consulted by Cairo. Some portrayed the truce offer as an
ultimatum presented to Hamas by Israel and Egypt.
The
officials said the Egyptian plan offered no tangible achievements,
particularly on easing the border blockade that has been enforced by
Israel and Egypt to varying degrees since 2007. Egypt tightened the
closure in the past year by shutting down smuggling tunnels that were
crucial for Gaza's economy, pushing Hamas into a severe financial
crisis.
"The siege on Gaza must be broken, and
the people of Gaza should live freely like other people of the world,"
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a top Hamas official, told the Lebanese TV channel
Al-Mayadeen. "There should be a new equation so that we will not have a
war on Gaza every two years."
Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said the movement wants additional mediators and international guarantees of any deal.
"Mediation
to end this aggression needs to come from different countries, and the
guarantees should be given by different countries in order to commit the
occupation (Israel) to what any future agreement might say," al-Masri
said, without naming preferred brokers.
Qatar
and Turkey, seen as more sympathetic to Hamas, have been involved behind
the scenes, but it's not clear to what extent. The emir of Qatar
visited Turkey for talks Tuesday with Turkish leaders.
Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas' main political rival, was to meet
Wednesday in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and
then fly to Turkey for high-level talks.
Before
the latest fighting, Abbas had reached a tentative unity deal with
Hamas that would have given him a new foothold in Gaza. However, a
significant easing of the Gaza blockade in a truce deal would revitalize
Hamas, make it less dependent on Abbas and possibly scuttle the unity
agreement.
Abbas and his Western-backed
Palestinian Authority have largely been sidelined in the past week,
unable to change the course of events.
Hamas'
popularity tends to rise when it fights Israel, usually at the expense
of Abbas, who continues to advocate negotiating a deal with Israel on
Palestinian statehood.
The Palestinian
Authority's health minister, Jawad Awwad, who had traveled to Gaza to
deliver medicine to the territory's largest hospital, was chased off by
stone throwers. Hamas officials later apologized to him.
In Israel, there was also domestic political fallout.
Netanyahu
is under a lot of pressure from hawks in his Cabinet and the ruling
Likud Party to launch a ground offensive to put an end to the rocket
fire. He faced blistering criticism from the right over initially
agreeing to the Egyptian truce plan.
Foreign
Minister Avigdor Lieberman called a news conference in which he said
Israel should not hesitate and "go all the way." He said the operation
should conclude with the Israeli military controlling all of the Gaza
Strip.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, fired Deputy
Defense Minister Danny Danon, one of his fiercest critics who didn't
tone down his rhetoric during the offensive. Netanyahu said that by
attacking the government at a time of war, Danon played into the hands
of Hamas.
