No cease-fire; Hamas chief vows to fight on
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip signaled Monday that the Islamic militant group will not agree to an unconditional cease-fire with Israel, while Israel’s defense minister pledged to keep fighting “as long as necessary” — raising new doubt about the highest-level mediation mission in two weeks.
United Nations Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Cairo on Monday to launch a new push to end the deadliest conflict between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers in about five years.
Meanwhile, cross-border fighting continued unabated.
A police spokesman today said Israeli aircraft had hit more than 70 targets in the Gaza Strip, including the home of the late leader of Hamas’ military wing, five mosques and a sports stadium.
Ayman Batniji said that tank shells damaged several houses along the eastern border of the territory early today and that at least 19 fishing boats were burned by navy shells fired from the Mediterranean.
The Israeli military said two soldiers were killed, raising the number of troops killed in two weeks of Israel-Hamas fighting to 27. Two
civilians also have been killed. A Palestinian official said more than 570 Palestinians have been killed since then.
On Monday, Israeli strikes left entire families buried under rubble, and Hamas militants fired more than 50 rockets and tried to sneak into Israel through two tunnels, the latest in a series of such attempts.
The Palestinian death toll Monday surpassed 100, Palestinian officials said, adding that more than 3,600 have been wounded since July 8.
Seven Israeli soldiers also were killed Monday in clashes with Palestinian militants, the Israeli military said. The Israeli military said four soldiers were killed in a firefight with Hamas fighters trying to sneak into Israel through a tunnel, and the other three were killed in battles in Gaza.
The military provided few details about the incursions into Israel, outside Gaza’s northeast corner, saying only that “two terror squads were detected.” An airstrike targeted one group of militants, the statement said, and “soldiers who were called to the scene” engaged the other.
The military said Monday that it had still not determined whether a soldier had been captured alive, as Hamas claimed in a statement Sunday night.
Mounting casualties on both sides have led international officials to step up diplomatic efforts to end the worst bout of fighting between the two sides since 2009.
On Monday, President Barack Obama reaffirmed his belief that Israel has the right to defend itself against rockets being launched by Hamas into Israel. Yet he contended that Israel’s military action in Gaza had already done “significant damage” to the Hamas terrorist infrastructure and said he doesn’t want to see more civilians killed.
Ban and Kerry were in Egypt to try to salvage an Egyptian cease-fire proposal that had been accepted by Israel last week but rejected by Hamas, which is demanding the lifting of a 7-year-old blockade of Gaza first.
Kerry announced the U.S. will send $47 million in humanitarian aid for tens of thousands of Palestinians who have fled their homes in Gaza to escape the violence. Kerry’s top aides warned, however, that achieving an immediate and lasting ceasefire would be difficult and that he hoped to make progress over the next several days to secure even a tempo- rary pause in the bloodshed.
When asked about such conditions, Ban told reporters Monday in Cairo that “the best way at this time is to stop the violence and return to dialogue and address the root causes of the problems.”
But Gilad Erdan, a rightist member of Israel’s so-called security cabinet, which makes strategic decisions, said Israel “must not agree to any proposal for a cease-fire until the tunnels are eliminated,” according to the Israeli news site Ynet. Speaking after he visited wounded soldiers at Barzilai hospital, Erdan raised the specter of a reoccupation of Gaza, saying “a green light has been given to expanding the action, and we should consider leaving forces in the northern part of the Gaza Strip to deal with the tunnels at the end of the operation.”
Israeli fighter planes struck homes and a high-rise tower in Gaza, in some cases burying families under the rubble, said Ashraf al-Kidra, a Palestinian health official.
The strike on the Gaza City tower brought down most of the building, killing 11 people and wounding 40, witnesses and a health official said.
Rescuers going through the wreckage of a house targeted late Sunday retrieved 28 bodies in the town of Khan Younis, including at least 24 from the Abu Jamea family, according to al-Kidra and a local human-rights group.
“Doesn’t this indicate that Israel is ruthless?” said family member Sabri Abu Jamea. “Are we the liars? The evidence is here in the morgue refrigerators. The evidence is in the refrigerators.”
Israeli tank shells also hit the Al Aqsa Hospital in the central town of Deir el-Balah, killing at least four people and wounding 60, al-Kidra said.
A doctor at the hospital, Fayez Zidane, said the third and fourth floors and the reception area were damaged, and patients were evacuated to the lower flowers.
The Israeli military said an initial investigation suggests that anti-tank missiles were stored near the hospital and that the cache was successfully targeted. “Civilian casualties are a tragic inevitability of the brutal and systematic exploitation of homes, hospitals and mosques in Gaza,” the army said.
The military has consistently said it makes great efforts to minimize civilian casualties but that Hamas puts Gazans in danger by hiding weapons and fighters in residential areas.
In fighting Monday, the Israeli military said 10 Hamas infiltrators trying to sneak in through the tunnels were killed after being detected and targeted by Israeli aircraft.
Hamas also fired 50 more rockets at Israel, including two at Tel Aviv, causing no injuries or damage. Since the start of the Israeli operation, Hamas has fired almost 2,000 rockets at Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said the Gaza military operation would have no time limit.
“If needed we will recruit more reservists in order to continue the operation as long as necessary until the completion of the task and the return of the quiet in the whole of Israel, especially from the threat of the Gaza Strip,” Yaalon told a parliamentary committee.
Israel accepted an Egyptian call for an unconditional cease-fire last week but resumed its military operation after Hamas rejected the proposal.
Hamas says that before halting fire, it wants guarantees that Israel and Egypt will significantly ease a seven-year border blockade of Gaza.
Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader in Gaza, said in a speech broadcast from Gaza that the fighting would continue unless an agreement met the movement’s demands: opening crossings, lifting restrictions on fishing, farming, import and export, and releasing prisoners who were freed in a 2011 exchange for an abducted Israeli soldier and recently rearrested.
He said the aim of the battle is to break the 7-year-old blockade of the Palestinian territory, which was imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas overran Gaza in 2007. Over the past year, Egypt has further tightened restrictions, driving Hamas into a deep financial crisis.
Haniyeh said in a televised speech that “we cannot go back, we cannot go back to the silent death” of the blockade. “Gaza will be the graveyard for the invaders, as it always was in the history.”
He said all of Gaza’s 1.7 million residents shared this demand.
Cairo’s cease-fire plan is backed by the U.S. and Israel. But Hamas is relying on governments in Qatar and Turkey for an alternative proposal. Qatar and Turkey have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is also linked to Hamas but banned in Egypt.
Hamas remains deeply suspicious of the motives of the Egyptian government, which has banned the Muslim Brotherhood.
Israel invaded Gaza late last week, preceded by a 10day air campaign. Air and artillery strikes have targeted Gaza’s border areas in an attempt to destroy tunnels and rocket launchers.
In Washington, meanwhile, the State Department renewed its travel warning for U.S. citizens considering a trip to Israel or the Palestinian territories. The warning said Americans should consider deferring nonessential travel to Israel and the West Bank and restated its long-standing advice for Americans not to visit Gaza at all.