Gaza update

Israeli air strikes target Hamas leaders as ceasefire fails

Netanyahu's security cabinet discusses limited ground operation in Gaza as more Palestinians killed in overnight attacks

the Guardian,

15 July, 201

Israeli missiles struck the houses of several senior Hamas figures overnight, as at least seven Palestinians were reportedly killed in the latest escalation of violence.The renewed strikes came a day after the failure of a brief and one-sided ceasefire on Tuesday observed by Israel, but not by Hamas.

Among the residences targeted were those of former interior minister Fathi Hamad and senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, which was destroyed. Zahar was said to be hiding elsewhere at the time of the missile strike.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has said he had "no choice" but to escalate Israel's bombing campaign. "When there is no ceasefire, our answer is fire," he said.

The Israeli security cabinet met into the early hours of Wednesday discussing a limited ground operation, an Israeli official has revealed.

Early on Wednesday morning, Israel dropped leaflets and delivered warnings by phone and text that tens of thousands of residents of two Gaza City neighbourhoods, Zeitoun in the south and Shujai'iya in the east, should evacuate their homes ahead of planned strikes on Wednesday and head to the city centre.

Among those ordered to leave were the patients of a rehabilitation hospital.

But the hospital's director, Basman Ashi, said everyone would remain and that foreign volunteers had arrived to serve as human shields.

Israel's ministry of the interior has told residents to ignore the warning, calling it "psychological warfare".

Just before the leaflets were dropped shortly after 8am, Palestinian factions fired a salvo of rockets from Gaza. The leaflet said the aim of the evacuation was to "to save your lives". It was the first time in the nine-day conflict that Gaza City residents have been ordered to flee although northern districts received a similar warning on Sunday

The heavy bombardment of Gaza, which has so far claimed scores of civilian lives, resumed on Tuesday afternoon after Israel warned that Hamas "would pay the price" for rejecting an Egypt-brokered truce plan and instead hitting Israel with scores of rockets.

Hamas's armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, rejected the ceasefire deal – a proposal that addressed in only general terms some of its key demands – and said its battle with Israel would continue.

But Moussa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas political official who was in Cairo, said the movement, which is seeking a deal that would ease the Egyptian and Israeli border restrictions throttling Gaza's economy, has not reached a final decision on Cairo's proposal.

Rocket fire killed an Israeli man on Tuesday, the first Israeli fatality in eight days of fighting. In Gaza, more than 202 people have been killed and almost 1,500 wounded, Palestinian officials said, making it the deadliest Israel-Hamas confrontation in just over five years.

Since 8 July, militants have fired nearly 1,000 rockets and mortars into Israel, and Israel has carried out around 1,500 strikes against targets inside the Gaza Strip, according to the army. The Egyptian proposal, initially accepted by Israel, had been the first attempt to end the fighting.

The ceasefire unraveled in less than a day, a sign that it will be harder than before to reach a truce amid claims that Hamas had not been informed of the terms of the proposed deal in advance.

According to Israeli media reports, it was not only the Islamist group that was kept out of the loop of deliberations between Israel and Egypt. Also excluded, according to a report in Haaretz, was Netanyahu's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, and minister for the economy, Nafatali Bennett – both of whom oppose any ceasefire – who claim they heard about the proposed ceasefire from media.

The ceasefire terms – which Israel observed for six short hours while Hamas continued firing rockets – fell far short of the militant group's demands, including he lifting of the siege and opening of border crossings and freedom for prisoners rearrested in the recent crack down on Hamas on the West Bank.

Hamas believes it has little to lose by continuing to fight, while a truce on unfavourable terms could further weaken its grip on the Gaza Strip, a territory it seized in 2007. Underscoring that position, Gaza militants fired more than 120 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel on Tuesday, during what Egypt had hoped would be a period of de-escalation.

A particularly heavy barrage came around dusk, with more than 40 rockets hitting Israel in just a few minutes, including one that fell on an empty school.

TV footage showed children cowering behind a wall in Tel Aviv's main square as sirens went off. The current violence has been the deadliest since a major Israeli military offensive in the winter of 2008-09.

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