Israeli Protective Edge operation goes on: IDF hit 30 targets in Gaza
15 July 2014, 22:57 -- Over the three hours since Israel's Protective Edge operation against Palestinian militants resumed Tuesday, the Israeli Air Force and Navy delivered strikes on 30 targets in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported.
The IDF said 20 masked launching platforms for rockets, Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) weapons depots and Islamic Jihad militant group control targets were hit by fire from air and sea in the enclave. Besides, Israel's Air Force delivered a targeted strike to kill a Palestinian radical who was preparing to launch a rocket.
Israel, the IDF said, abstained from strikes on the Gaza Strip for six hours today since 09:00 local time while abiding by a ceasefire agreement suggested as part of Egypt's peace initiative. But Palestinian militants rejected Cairo's plan and continued rocket attacks on Israel all this time. Over the six hours of one-sided truce, 47 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip, the IDF said.
At 15:00 local time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF to resume strikes against Gaza. The head of government made the decision after consultations with Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon. Immediately after Netanyahu's permission, the Israeli army resumed strikes on targets inside the Palestinian enclave.
Over the past three hours, radicals from the Gaza Strip launched at least 30 rockets on Israel, Itar-Tass reports.
Israeli resumes military operations against Gaza, at least two airstrikes reported
At least two air strikes were carried out in the Gaza Strip by Israel on Tuesday afternoon, resuming raids after a failed truce, AFP reports its correspondents and eyewitnesses as saying. This happened after the Egypt-proposed ceasefire was rejected by Hamas leaders, who said they are opposed to ceasing the fire without reaching an agreement on the terms of a truce first.
An AFP correspondent reported one air strike in Gaza City, and eyewitnesses reported a second in the southern Khan Yunis area.
World's top politicians urge Hamas to accept ceasefire in Gaza Strip
On Tuesday the Israeli security cabinet unilaterally accepted the ceasefire proposed by Egypt, after over a week of one of the deadliest cross-border fightings with armed groups in Gaza that, according to sources, killed 192 Palestinians and injured over 1,400. Israel has warned Hamas of intensifying the Gaza strikes if the latter does not agree to the truce. US Secretary of State John Kerry along with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier are urging Hamas leaders to end the violence.
US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Hamas to accept Egypt's ceasefire proposal and halt fighting with Israel in the Gaza Strip, AFP reports.
In a brief statement released by the State Department on Tuesday, Kerry welcomed Israel's decision to accept the proposal.
'The Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire and negotiations provides an opportunity to end the violence and restore calm,' Kerry stated.
'We welcome the Israeli cabinet's decision to accept it. We urge all other parties to accept the proposal,' he said.
So far, Hamas has refused to accept the Egyptian proposal to end a week of the deadliest violence Gaza has seen in years, which killed more than 190 Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in turn, announced on Tuesday his government will resume and intensify the Gaza offensive if Hamas and other armed groups in the Strip do not stop firing rockets and refuse to accept an Egyptian ceasefire plan.
'If Hamas doesn't accept the ceasefire proposal -- and that's how it seems at this point in time -- Israel will have all the international legitimacy to broaden its military activity (in Gaza) in order to achieve the necessary quiet,' he declared at a joint news conference with visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Steinmeier arrived in Israel as part of the mediation efforts, for meetings with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. The US embassy in Cairo said Secretary of State John Kerry would not visit the region, as previously announced by state media.
Berlin's top diplomat also urged Hamas to accept Cairo's proposal.
'I request that the leaders of the Gaza Strip stick to the ceasefire,' he said.
'Gaza cannot always remain Hamas's weapons repository... (that) means damage not only for the people of Israel, but for the people in Gaza itself who are held hostage by Hamas,' he charged.
Netanyahu made his statement just hours after the Israeli security cabinet voted in favor of accepting an Egyptian truce proposal for a ceasefire that was rejected by Hamas.
'The (security) cabinet has decided to answer positively to the Egyptian initiative for a ceasefire starting today at 9 am (06:00 GMT),' media cites Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office as saying in a statement.
But forum of seven senior ministers also warned it would respond 'with force' to any further rocket fire.
'We responded positively to the Egyptian proposal to give a chance to deal with the demilitarization of Gaza from missiles, rockets and tunnels,' he said.
Commentators said the positive Israeli answer was partially a bid to recruit international support, in case the rocket fire did not stop and Israel would have to expand the offensive and send in ground troops, according to press.
However, Hamas rejected the ceasefire arrangement. Abbas welcomed the Egyptian proposal, but Sami Abu Zuchri, the spokesman of Hamas' political wing, said Hamas opposed ceasing the fire without reaching an agreement on the terms of a truce first.
The Qassam Brigades, in a statement issued 30 minutes before the truce would take effect, said the proposal 'isn't worth the ink that wrote it,' adding that no one had bothered to 'contact the resistance in this alleged initiative."
Militants from its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, claimed to have fired eight rockets at the southern port city of Ashdod at around 09:00 GMT, according to the press.
Police confirmed one rocket had struck a yard outside a house in the city, which is home to some 212,000 people.
'Because we were excluded from the consultations for this (truce) initiative, we are not obliged to abide by it,' AFP cites Hamas as saying in a statement.
Another Hamas representative, Osama Hamdan, in an interview with CNN called the Egyptian initiative 'close to a joke.'
'What they are trying to do is to corner the Palestinians and to help the Israelis,' he said, referring to the Egyptians.
Hamas has had no relations with Cairo since the ousting of Egypt's former Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, who was a leading member of the Palestinian off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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