Rockets fly in Mideast
As Netanyahu meets with Trump, Gaza strikes house north of Tel Aviv, triggering retaliations
MISHMERET, Israel — Israel and Hamas exchanged blows on Monday after a rocket launched from Gaza struck a house in central Israel.
The Israeli military said Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, had fired a long-range rocket that wounded seven people at dawn in the farming village of Mishmeret, about 20 miles north of Tel Aviv.
Intent on deterring Hamas after several recent bouts of rocket fire, Israel scaled up its response, opening at sunset with attacks on several buildings that the Israelis said Hamas had used for military purposes in populated areas of Gaza City.
Gaza militants fired back, launching barrages of rockets into southern Israel. Yet late Monday, Hamas announced that a cease-fire had been brokered by Egyptian mediators — before renewed rocket fire could be heard in Gaza, setting off air-raid sirens in southern Israel.
In Washington to celebrate U.S. recognition of Israel’s control of the Golan Heights, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was cutting short his visit to the United States as the rocket attack posed a new challenge to his bid for reelection just two weeks before Israelis go to the polls.
Appearing at the White House while meeting with President Donald Trump, Netanyahu said, “As we speak, Israel is responding forcefully to this wanton aggression.”
Netanyahu, who also serves as Israel’s defense minister, appeared to be conducting the air campaign from his guest rooms in Blair House, where aides said he was approving targets and overseeing the attacks after delaying his departure from Washington.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in Gaza. Israel had fired warning shots to evacuate the buildings, but an airstrike on a multistory building was so powerful, it sent debris flying onto the roof of The Associated Press bureau, located on the 11th floor of a nearby high-rise.
Earlier Monday, Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, reversing more than a halfcentury of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Standing alongside Netanyahu at the White House, Trump made formal a move he announced in a surprise tweet last week.
The president said it was time for the U.S. to take the step after 52 years of Israeli control of the strategic highlands on the border with Syria. The U.S. is the first country to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan, which the rest of the international community regards as Israeli-occupied.
Trump said his decision would cement the Jewish state’s ability to defend itself from regional threats should a broad Arab-israeli peace deal ever be reached. Trump’s action also likely gives Netanyahu a political boost ahead of what’s expected to be a close Israeli election. During his 90-minute visit to the White House, reporters and photographers were invited to see Netanyahu at least four times: his arrival at the South Lawn, the signing of the declaration in the Diplomatic Room, a walk through the Colonnade and in the Oval Office.
Syria denounced the U.S. move as “blatant aggression” on its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The foreign ministry said Trump’s step represented the “highest level of contempt for international legitimacy” and showed that Washington was “the main enemy” of Arabs. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-moallem told Syrian TV that the Golan is a Syrianoccupied territory and that Trump’s decision will only isolate America.
Lebanon, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited over the past weekend, said the Golan Heights are “Syrian Arab” territory and “no country can falsify history by transferring” land from one country to another.
Amnesty International called the decision “irresponsible, reckless and yet another example of the Trump administration violating international law and consensus by condoning Israel’s illegal annexation.”
Netanyahu, even as he was somberly cutting short his visit to Washington to deal with a rocket attack in central Israel, was elated by Trump’s move.
“Israel has never had a better friend than you,” he told the president.