Israel PM warns of long Gaza war
JERUSALEM: A grim-faced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned yesterday of a protracted war in Gaza, dashing any hopes of a swift end to the three-week conflict as Palestinian fighters launched an audacious crossborder raid.
The Israeli army said five of its soldiers had died in two separate incidents, including four in a mortar strike. Local media also reported casualties in the infiltration, but there was no confirmation of this.
Inside Gaza itself, eight chil- dren and two adults were killed by a blast in a park as an unofficial truce sought by the UN for the Muslim Eid-ul-Fitr festival collapsed. Residents blamed the explosion on an air strike, but Israel said a misfiring militant rocket caused the carnage.
“It has been a difficult, painful day,” Netanyahu said.
“We need to be prepared for a protracted campaign. We will continue to act with force and discretion until our mission is accomplished.”
He added that Israeli troops would not leave Gaza until they had destroyed Hamas’s tunnel network.
Some 1 060 Gazans, most of
Israeli troops would not leave Gaza until they had destroyed Hamas’s tunnel network
them civilians, have died in the conflagration. Israel has lost 48 soldiers, and three civilians have been killed by Palestinian shelling.
As night fell over Gaza, army flares illuminated the sky and the sound of intense shelling could be heard. The military warned thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes in areas around Gaza City – usually the prelude to major army strikes.
The explosion of violence, after a day of relative calm, appeared to wreck international hopes of turning a brief lull in fighting into a longerterm ceasefire. Gaza’s dominant Hamas Islamists said they had accepted a UN call for a pause in hostilities to coincide with Eid, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadaan.
Israel initially balked, having abandoned its own offer to extend a 12-hour truce from Saturday when Palestinian rockets kept flying. However, calm gradually descended through the night with just the occasional exchange of fire heard until a series of blasts shook Gaza in the afternoon.
Pools of blood lay on the ground in the Beach refugee camp garden in northern Gaza after it was hit by a huge explosion.
“We came out of the mosque when I saw the children playing with their toy guns. Seconds later a missile landed,” said Munther al-Derbi, a resident of the camp.
“May God punish Netanyahu,” he said.
At roughly the same time, another blast shook the grounds of Gaza’s main Shifa hospital, without causing any casualties. Israel, which has previously accused Hamas fighters of hiding in the hospital, again blamed an errant militant missile.
Foreign pressure has been building on Netanyahu to muzzle his forces, with US President Barack Obama and the UN Security Council urging an immediate ceasefire that would allow relief to reach Gaza’s 1.8 million Palestinians.