Israeli strike claims civilians
Children among dead; attacks will expand, Netanyahu warns
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces killed at least 11 people, including several children, in a single airstrike that destroyed a home here Sunday, as Israel pressed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip for a fifth day, deploying warplanes and naval vessels to pummel the coastal enclave.
The airstrike, which the Israeli military said was meant to kill a Palestinian militant involved in the recent rocket attacks, was the deadliest operation so far in the recent clashes and would no doubt weigh on negotiations for a possible ceasefire. Among the dead were four small children, The Associated Press reported, citing a Palestinian health official.
Two media offices were also hit Sunday, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a “signifi cant” expansion in the onslaught, which has already killed more than 50 people, many of them civilians.
Speaking Sunday from Bangkok, President Barack Obama condemned missile attacks by Pal----
Netanyahu ‘ We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas.’ Obama Says Israel has a right to protect itself from attacks. Haniyeh Israeli strike fell near home of Hamas primeminister.
estinian fighters in Gaza and said that Israel had a right to protect itself.
Even as the diplomacy intensified Sunday, the attacks continued in Gaza and Israel.
Netanyahu made his warning as militants in Gaza aimed at least one rocket at Tel Aviv, a day after Israeli forces broadened the attack beyond military targets, bombing centers of government infrastructure in Gaza, including the four- story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister.
Reservists called up
“We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations, and the Israel Defense Forces are prepared for a signifi cant expansion of the operation,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet at its routine Sunday meeting, referring directly to the thousands of reservists who have been called up and the massing of armor on the Gaza border that many analysts have interpreted as preparation for a possible invasion.
His remarks were reported shortly after a battery of Israel’s Iron Dome defense shield, hastily deployed near Tel Aviv on Saturday in response to the threat of longer- range rockets, intercepted at least one aimed at the city Sunday, Israeli officials said. It was the latest of several salvos that have illustrated Hamas’ ability to extend the reach of its rocket attacks.
Since Wednesday, when the escalation of the conflict began, Iron Dome has knocked 245 rockets out of the sky, the military said Saturday, while 500 have struck Israel.
The U. S.- fi nanced system is designed to intercept only rockets streaking toward towns and cities and to ignore those likely to strike open ground. But on Sunday, a rocket fi red from Gaza plowed through the roof of an apartment building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. There were no immediate reports of casualties there.
In Gaza City, the crash of explosions pierced the quiet several times throughout the early morning.
Before the latest deadly strike involving civilians Sunday, Hamas health offi - cials had said the Palestinian death toll had risen to 53. One of the latest victims was a 52- year- old woman whose house in the eastern part of Gaza City was bombed around lunchtime.
A few hours earlier, a Hamas militant was killed and seven people were wounded in an attack on the Beach Refugee Camp, where Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, has a home. Those killed Sunday included three children ages 1 to 5, the health offi - cials said.
In Israel, three civilians have died and 63 have been injured. Four soldiers were wounded Saturday.
Palestinian news agencies reported that two children were killed in a predawn strike Sunday in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said it had “targeted dozens of underground launchers” overnight and also hit what it called a Hamas training base and command center. The Israeli Navy “targeted terror sites on the northern Gaza shoreline,” the statement said, in repeated rounds of missiles.
Among the buildings that Israel hit overnight were two containing the offices of local news media outlets.
‘ Immoral massacre’
Salama Marouf, of the Hamas media offi ce, condemned what he called an “immoral massacre against the media” and called the attack a confession by Israel “that it has lost the media battle.”
Seven journalists were injured in the fi rst attack, in the Shawa and Hossari Building in downtown Gaza City. It houses two local radio stations — one run by the militant Islamic Jihad — and the offi ces of the Ma’an Palestinian news agency as well as the German broadcaster ARD.
The Israelis referred to the two sites as “Hamas operational communication sites that were identifi ed by precise intelligence.”