Israel rejects truce, presses on with Gaza strikes | International | Reuters
Israel rejects truce, presses on with Gaza strikes
Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:16am EST
GAZA (Reuters) - Israel hit the Gaza Strip with more air strikes on Tuesday and said its military action could last weeks, while rockets fired by Islamist Hamas struck deep inside the Jewish state.
Both sides rejected any notion of a ceasefire soon, three days after Israeli leaders launched bombing raids with the declared aim of halting rocket salvoes from the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave.
"None of us can say how long it will take," Israeli President Shimon Peres said after being briefed at the Defence Ministry.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israel, which is blockading Gaza, was gathering ground forces at the frontier and would expand its operation "as much as is necessary" to stop the rocket fire and "deal a heavy blow to Hamas."
Despite winter rain -- weather that could impede any ground incursions -- Israeli warplanes pressed on for the fourth day with attacks on Hamas targets, killing 12 Palestinians. They included sisters aged four and 11.
Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction in fighting in June 2007. It has rejected international demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim peace deals.
Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas official, said: "We are not begging for calm and there is no room to talk about calm amid the continued aggression and siege."
Rockets fired from the Gaza Strip struck outside the Israeli towns of Kiryat Malachi and Rahat, a bedouin community near the southern city of Beersheba, areas some 30 km (18 miles) from the territory and which had not been attacked before.
There were no reports of casualties after the salvoes, a day after three Israelis were killed by rockets.
Medical officials put Palestinian casualties since Saturday at 383 dead and more than 800 wounded. A United Nations agency said at least 62 of the dead were civilians. In all, four Israelis have been killed since the operation began.
"We are living in horror, we and our children. The situation is not just bad, it is tragic," said Gaza resident Abu Fares, standing outside his home, near the rubble of a building that was bombed and destroyed overnight.
Israeli media quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as saying the Gaza operation, launched by his centrist government six weeks before a national election that opinion polls predict the right-wing Likud party will win, was in "the first of a several stages."
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he had answered Olmert's call to "help out in Israel's PR (public relations) efforts," told Reuters the Jewish state would eventually have to remove Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip.
"Whether it can be done right now is something I don't think we should discuss here. But it should be discussed because ultimately, if we don't do it, then Hamas will rearm itself," he said.