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Conflict intensifies as rockets hit Tel Aviv
Netanyahu blames Hamas for violence as three die in Israel and the toll
on the Palestinian side rises to 16.
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2012 19:35
Tension is rising across the Middle East as Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian
group which controls the Gaza Strip, continue to exchange fire amid the worst
outbreak of violence since the Israeli assault on the territory nearly four
years ago.
Three Israelis died in the northern town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday after a
rocket fired from Gaza hit an apartment building.
Israeli sources said two rockets hit Tel Aviv - one landed in the sea while
another missile landed in an uninhabited area of Israel's commercial centre.
World reacts to renewed Israel-Gaza conflict
Air raid sirens sent residents running for shelter in Tel Aviv, a Mediterranean
city that has not been hit by a rocket since the 1991 Gulf War.
Islamic Jihad, another Gaza-based Palestinian group, said that it had fired one
of the rockets that hit Tel Aviv.
While southern Israeli areas near Gaza have long coped with rocket fire, the
attacks on the Tel Aviv area illustrated the significant capabilities that
Hamas has developed.
Palestinian fighters had previously hit Rishon Lezion before but never reached
Tel Aviv, roughly 70km north of the Gaza Sttrip.
At least 16 Palestinians, including two children, have been killed and more
than 150 others wounded as of Thursday in fighting which began with an aerial
attack that killed Ahmad Jabari, Hamas military commander who was accused by
Israel for overseeing attacks against civilians.
"It is important to understand one simple point: there is no moral symmetry
between the terrorists in Gaza and Israel," Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime
minister, said on Thursday
"They are committing double war crimes: they fire at Israeli civilians and hide
behind Palestinian civilians."
Netanyahu referred to the Israeli attacks on Gaza as "surgical".
Rockets and mortars
On the second day of an assault that Israel said might last many days, its
fighter jets bombed targets in and around Gaza City late into the night.
Israeli authorities said more than 250 rockets and mortars were fired by Hamas
and other armed groups from Gaza as of Thursday afternoon, and that its Iron
Dome interceptor missile system had shot down dozens of the projectiles.
On either side of the frontier, people fled streets for cover.
Spokesman Mark Regev defends Israeli attacks
Israeli Channel 2 TV showed panicked Tel Aviv residents running for cover and
lying down on the ground after the air-raid sirens began sounding.
The armed wing of the Islamic Jihad announced on Thursday it had fired an
Iranian-built rocket at Tel Aviv.
"The Quds Brigades hit the occupied city of Tel Rabea [Tel Aviv] with a Fajr 5
rocket causing a large explosion to shake the city," the group said in a brief
statement, shortly after an AFP correspondent reported seeing a rocket land in
the water south of the sprawling coastal city.
"What comes next will be greater."
In a separate statement, posted on Islamic Jihad's website, Abu Ahmed, Islamic
Jihad spokesperson, pledged that Israel would experience "further surprises so
long as the aggression against the Palestinian people continues.
"The enemy began the battle but the resistance will determine how the battle
will end," he said.
Late on Thursday, Israel began moving troops towards the Gaza Strip and
authorised the call-up of reservists for a possible ground invasion.
At least a dozen lorries carrying tanks and armoured vehicles were seen moving
towards the border area, while buses ferried soldiers.
Ehud Barak, Israeli defence minister, announced that he had authorised the army
to draft reserve forces for possible activity in Gaza.
The army said as many as 30,000 troops could be drafted.
Middle East powder keg
The sudden conflict pours oil on the fire of a Middle East already tense with
two years of revolution and an out-of-control civil war in Syria.
Egypt recalled its ambassador to Israel on Wednesday, summoned the Israeli
ambassador to Cairo in protest over the assault and ordered its representative
at the UN to call for an emergency Security Council meeting.
Mohamed Morsi, the Egypttian president, spoke to US President Barack Obama and
Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, over phone and discussed the Gaza escalation
with them.
Taher Nuno, Hamas government spokesperson, said that Egypt would send a
delegation headed by Hesham Kandil, Egyptian prime minister, to Gaza on Friday.
Thursday's deadly rocket fire on Kiryat Malahi was claimed by Jabari's group,
the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in a statement on its website.
Jabari's funeral took place in Gaza on Thursday.
Israel warned Hamas that all its men were in its sights and faced censure from
influential Arab countries - with the Arab League announcing it was to hold an
emergency meeting on Saturday and Egypt recalling its ambassador to Israel.
Mark Regev, spokesperson for Netanyahu's office, told Al Jazeera that Israel
will "continue to hit the Hamas military machine, to hit their command and
control, to hit their arsenal where they store their weapons.
"Unfortunately today the Israeli population of southern Israel is on the
receiving end of these barrages. We have had three people killed. Children,
instead of going to school, are stuck in bomb shelters.
"We will They must understand that they cannot hit Israeli civilians with
impunity."
The US condemned Hamas, long shunned by the West as an obstacle to peace.
"There is no justification for the violence that Hamas and other terrorist
organisations are employing against the people of Israel," Mark Toner, deputy
state department spokesman, said.
The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting late on Wednesday, but took
no action.
In France, Laurent Fabius, foreign minister, said: "It would be a catastrophe
if there is an escalation in the region. Israel has the right to security but
it won't achieve it through violence. The Palestinians also have the right to a
state."
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades issued a communique on Wednesday saying Israel
had "opened the gates of hell on itself", while Fawzi Barhum, Hamas spokesman,
said Jabari's killing was tantamount to a "declaration of war".
>From Israel's perspective, Hamas escalated tit-for-tat fighting in recent days
>with a pair of attacks: an explosion in a tunnel along the Israeli border and
>a missile attack on an Israeli military jeep that seriously wounded four
>soldiers.
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