Israel hammers Hamas in Gaza offensive

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/top-hamas-commander-killed-israeli-airstrike-143218204.html

By Nidal al-Mughrabi | Reuters – 2 hrs 34 mins ago

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel launched a major offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday, killing the military commander of Hamas in an air strike and threatening an invasion of the enclave that the Islamist group vowed would "open the gates of hell".

The onslaught shattered hopes that a truce mediated on Tuesday by Egypt could pull the two sides back from the brink of war after five days of escalating Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli strikes at militant targets.

Operation "Pillar of Defence" began with a surgical strike on a car carrying the commander of the military wing of Hamas, the Iranian-armed Islamist movement which controls Gaza and dominates a score of smaller armed groups.

Within minutes of the death of Ahmed Al-Jaabari, big explosions shook Gaza as the Israeli air force struck at selected targets just before sundown, blasting plumes of smoke and debris high above the crowded city.

Panicking civilians ran for cover and the death toll mounted quickly. Ten people including three children were killed, the health ministry said, and about 40 were wounded. Also among the dead were an 11-month-old baby and a woman pregnant with twins.

Army tanks shelled border areas of Gaza in south and the Israeli navy shelled a Hamas security position from the sea.

Hamas stuck back, firing at least four Grad rockets at the southern city of Beersheba in what it called its initial response. Israel reported damage but no casualties. Its 'Iron Dome' interceptor defence knocked out a dozen rockets in flight.

The escalation in Gaza came in a week when Israel fired at Syrian artillery positions it said had fired into the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights amid a civil war in Syria that has brought renewed instability to neighboring Lebanon.

Egypt, whose new Islamist government pledged to honor the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, condemned the raids as a threat to regional security, recalled its ambassador from Israel and called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's predecessor Hosni Mubarak twice withdrew his ambassador, with no lasting effect. But Israel will be watching for signs of a more aggressive approach by the Islamist leader that could imperil their ties.

Mursi has said of the Palestinians that "our blood is their blood" and Egypt may not "accept what was accepted before".

Russia called for an end to the raids. Arab League foreign ministers planned to meet on Saturday to discuss the crisis.

DOZENS OF TARGETS

A second Gaza war has loomed on the horizon for months as waves of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli strikes grew increasingly more intense and frequent.

Israel's Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 began with a week of air attacks and shelling, followed by a land invasion of the blockaded coastal strip, sealed off at sea by the Israeli navy. Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed and 13 Israelis died.

The Israel Defence Forces said it had targeted dozens of Hamas's medium range (up to 40km) underground rocket launch and infrastructure sites in Wednesday's strikes.

"This has significantly damaged the rocket launch capabilities as munitions warehouses owned by Hamas and other terror organizations were targeted. In addition, Israeli Navy soldiers targeted several Hamas terror sites stationed along the shoreline of the Gaza Strip," it said in a statement.

The Hamas internal security headquarters in southern Gaza was destroyed. There were no injuries because it had been evacuated. After dark, Gaza looked like a ghost city, with no traffic and no people in the streets, no shops open, no electric lights on.

KILLED IN HIS CAR

Hamas said Jaabari, who ran the organization's armed wing, Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam, died along with a Hamas photographer when their car was blown apart by an Israeli missile.

The charred wreckage of a car could be seen belching flames, as emergency crews picked up what appeared to be body parts.

Israel confirmed it had carried out the attack and announced there was more to come. Reuters witnesses saw Hamas security compounds and police stations blasted apart.

"Today we relayed a clear message to the Hamas organization and other terrorist organizations," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. "And if there is a need, the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) is prepared to broaden the operation. We will continue to do everything in order to protect our citizens."

Immediate calls for revenge were broadcast over Hamas radio.

"The occupation has opened the gates of hell," Hamas's armed wing said. Smaller groups also vowed to strike back.

"Israel has declared war on Gaza and they will bear the responsibility for the consequences," Islamic Jihad said.

Southern Israeli communities within rocket range of Gaza were on full alert, and schools were ordered closed for Thursday. About one million Israelis live in range of Gaza's relatively primitive but lethal rockets, supplemented in recent months by longer-range, more accurate systems.

"The days we face in the south will, in my estimation, prove protracted," Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, Israel's chief military spokesman, told Channel 2 TV.

The Israeli cabinet gave preliminary authorization for the mobilization of military reserves if required, Netanyahu's office said.

Asked if Israel might send in ground forces, Mordechai said: "There are preparations, and if we are required to, the option of an entry by ground is available."

OBAMA BRIEFED

Israeli President Shimon Peres briefed U.S. President Barack Obama on the operation, Peres's office said. He told Obama that Jaabari was a "mass-murderer" and his killing was Israel's response to Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza.

"Israel is not interested in stoking the flames, but for the past five days there has been constant missile fire at Israel and mothers and children cannot sleep quietly at night," said Peres, who visited the border town of Sderot earlier.

In the flare-up that was prelude to Wednesday's offensive, more than 115 missiles were fired into southern Israel from Gaza and Israeli planes launched numerous strikes.

Seven Palestinians, three of them gunmen, were killed. Eight Israeli civilians were hurt by rocket fire and four soldiers wounded by an anti-tank missile.

The leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, called on Arab states, especially Egypt, to halt the assault. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council said the U.N. Security Council should put pressure on Israel to stop its attacks.

Israel holds a general election on January 22 and Netanyahu has pledged to retaliate harshly against Hamas. But Israel is also wary of the reaction from Mursi's Egypt, whose ruling Muslim Brotherhood is the spiritual mentor of Hamas.

Hamas has been emboldened by its rise to power, viewing Mursi as a "safety net" who will not permit a second Israeli thrashing of Gaza, home to 1.7 million Palestinians.

Hamas is also supported by Iran, which Israel regards as a rising threat to its own existence due to its nuclear program.

Helped by the contraband trade through tunnels from Egypt, Gaza militias have smuggled in longer-range rockets.

But their estimated 35,000 Palestinian fighters are still no match for Israel's F-16 fighter-bombers, Apache helicopter gun ships, Merkava tanks and other modern weapons systems in the hands of a conscript force of 175,000, with 450,000 in reserve.

[Danno 1,228]

It's on!

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

It's on!

The next good one over there will most likely be Israel vs Egypt. That Arab Spring did exactly what we knew it would do and now the nutters are running the show over there.

[Danno 1,228]

The next good one over there will most likely be Israel vs Egypt. That Arab Spring did exactly what we knew it would do and now the nutters are running the show over there.

I suspect this will run its self out but as the islamic revolution matures I think Israel has a huge problem.

Most of us have no idea the level of wide spread hate for the Jews in that part of the world, it is unreal.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

I suspect this will run its self out but as the islamic revolution matures I think Israel has a huge problem.

Most of us have no idea the level of wide spread hate for the Jews in that part of the world, it is unreal.

Those Jews are pretty tough folk, that and there's millions of them here that can go to Israel and help fight. I don't see Israel losing. They have plenty of fire power and their European smart when it comes to warfare. I'd say they are easily 14 point favorites if they go at it with Egypt.

[OriZ 3,157]

I love how they always call terrorists "militants". I think FOX news is the only network that doesn't (always) do that.

As for Egypt, I don't see a war coming. Peace with Egypt has lasted for decades and it is in their best interest to keep it that way, even if it is a cold peace. No peace, no money from the states, and their economy is in the tank as it is. Plus, they don't want to get their asses whooped.

[Danno 1,228]

I love how they always call terrorists "militants". I think FOX news is the only network that doesn't (always) do that.

As for Egypt, I don't see a war coming. Peace with Egypt has lasted for decades and it is in their best interest to keep it that way, even if it is a cold peace. No peace, no money from the states, and their economy is in the tank as it is. Plus, they don't want to get their asses whooped.

You may be right at this incident but I lack your confidence that

-you can base future peace off of Egypt's former government.

-Radical islam can be silenced with cash.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/us-backs-israel-gaza-including-ground-forces-213412646--politics.html

U.S. backs Israel on Gaza—including use of ground forces

By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 7 hrs ago

The White House on Thursday threw its full support behind Israel's military response to a barrage of rockets fired by the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip. Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes said it would be "up to the Israeli government" whether to follow up punishing airstrikes with a ground assault.

"Our view is that the Israelis have the right of self-defense when their citizens are faced with the threat of indiscriminate rocket fire from within Gaza," Rhodes told reporters on a conference call.

Asked whether the Obama administration would have any issues with an Israeli ground assault, Rhodes replied that "ultimately, it's up to the Israeli government to make determinations about how they're going to carry out their military objectives."

The Associated Press has reported that Hamas fired more than 200 rockets on Thursday, killing three people, and that Israel seemed to be gearing up for a ground invasion of Gaza. The escalating conflict amounted to President Barack Obama's first major foreign policy test since winning re-election Nov. 6. Rhodes said American officials were in close consultation with their Israeli counterparts "to have an understanding of their plans going forward."

The Obama administration has been in discussions with Turkey, Egypt and "some of our European partners," he said, thought to have sway over Hamas in order to get them to urge the militant organization to halt its rocket attacks.

"At the United Nations, where this is being discussed, we've sought to keep the focus where it should be—which is on Hamas's rocket fire as the precipitating cause here," Rhodes explained.

"What we've also said is that the best course of action would be for there to be a general de-escalation of the violence, but that the onus is on Hamas—and those with influence over Hamas—to help bring about that de-escalation, so that we don't see a widening conflict," he told reporters.

/ "So we certainly want to see a de-escalation, we certainly want to see a broader conflict avoided."

The official noted that the White House has urged Israel to take "all steps ... to avoid civilian casualties." He added, "And we deeply regret the loss of life on the Israeli and Palestinian side."

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren briefed key senators on the operation. The lawmakers—Democrats and Republicans—released a joint statement expressing "solidarity" with Israel while warning that "escalation will only lead to further suffering on both sides."

Edited November 16, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-pm-visit-gaza-support-hamas-against-israel-003232434.html

Egypt PM to visit Gaza in support of Hamas against Israel

By Nidal al-Mughrabi | Reuters – 3 hrs ago

GAZA (Reuters) - Egypt's prime minister prepared to visit the Gaza Strip on Friday in an unprecedented display of solidarity with Hamas militants embroiled in a new escalation of conflict with Israel that risks spiraling into all-out war.

Two rockets from Gaza crashed near Tel Aviv in the first such attack on Israel's commercial capital in 20 years. One fell into the Mediterranean Sea and the other in an uninhabited part of one of the Tel Aviv suburbs south of the city.

Two days of Israeli air strikes have killed 19 Palestinians, including seven militants and 12 civilians, among them six children and a pregnant woman. A Hamas rocket killed three Israelis in the town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday morning.

The latest upsurge in the long-running conflict came on Wednesday when Israel killed Hamas' military mastermind, Ahmed Al-Jaabari, in a precision air strike on his car. Israel then began shelling the coastal enclave from land, air and sea.

Israel says its offensive responded to increasing missile salvoes from Gaza. Its bombing has not yet reached the saturation level seen before it last invaded Gaza in 2008, but Israeli officials have said a ground assault remains possible.

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East ablaze with two years of Arab popular revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread further afield.

Israeli warplanes bombed targets in and around Gaza City, rattling tall buildings. In a hint of escalation, the spokesman for Israel's military said it had received the green light to call in up to 30,000 reserve troops.

Egypt's new Islamist President, Mohamed Mursi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by allies of the Palestinians.

Mursi's prime minister, Hisham Kandil, is to visit Gaza on Friday with other Egyptian officials in a show of support for the enclave, an Egyptian cabinet official said. Israel promised the delegation would come to no harm.

An Egyptian government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials accompanying Kandil would explore the possibility of brokering a ceasefire.

Mursi faces domestic pressure to act tough. But Egypt gets $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid and looks to Washington for help with its ailing economy, constraining Mursi despite his need to show Egyptians that his policies differ from those of his U.S.-backed predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

TEL AVIV TARGETED

Air raid sirens sent residents running for shelter in Tel Aviv, a Mediterranean city that has not been hit by a rocket since the 1991 Gulf War, when it was targeted by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The Tel Aviv metropolitan area is home to more than 3 million people, more than 40 percent of Israel's population. "This escalation will exact a price that the other side will have to pay," Barak said in a television broadcast shortly after the strike.

But an Israeli cabinet statement on Wednesday spoke only of "improving" national security - acknowledgement that the Jewish state has no illusions about crushing the militants once and for all.

Speaking at the same time in Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh urged Egypt to do more to help the Palestinians.

"We call upon the brothers in Egypt to take the measures that will deter this enemy," the Hamas prime minister said.

The resurgent conflict will be the biggest test yet of Mursi's commitment to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which the West views as the bedrock of Middle East peace.

Cairo recalled its ambassador from Israel on Wednesday. Israel's ambassador left Cairo on what was called a routine home visit; Israel said its embassy would remain open.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which brought Mursi to power in an election after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, has called for a "Day of Rage" in Arab capitals on Friday. The Brotherhood is seen as the spiritual mentor of Hamas.

The Israeli army said 300 targets were hit in Gaza, including more than 130 militant rocket launchers. It said more than 270 rockets had struck Israel since the start of the operation, with its Iron Dome interceptor system shooting down more than 130 rockets bound for residential areas.

Expecting days or more of fighting and almost inevitable civilian casualties, Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in Gaza advising residents to stay away from Hamas and other militants.

DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS

United Nations diplomats said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would head to Israel and Egypt next week to try to mediate a ceasefire, although they gave no further details.

The United States has asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its recent rocket attacks from Gaza, a White House adviser said.

"We've ... urged those that have a degree of influence with Hamas, such as Turkey and Egypt and some of our European partners, to use that influence to urge Hamas to de-escalate," Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, said in a conference call with reporters.

French President Francois Hollande began talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other world leaders in an attempt to avert an escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Jean-Francois Ayrault said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke to Netanyahu too, saying Hamas bore the principal responsibility for the crisis.

Israel's sworn enemy Iran, which supports and arms Hamas, condemned the Israeli offensive as "organized terrorism."

Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militia Hezbollah, which has its own rockets aimed at the Jewish state, denounced strikes on Gaza as "criminal aggression," but held its fire.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned Israel's action.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/hamas-targets-tel-aviv-part-rocket-barrage-234140732.html

Hamas targets Tel Aviv as part of rocket barrage

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and KARIN LAUB | Associated Press – 3 hrs ago

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinian militants targeted densely populated Tel Aviv in Israel's heartland with rockets for the first time Thursday, part of an unprecedented barrage that threatened to provoke an Israeli ground assault on Gaza. Three Israelis were killed in a separate rocket attack in southern Israel.

Air raid sirens wailed and panicked residents ran for cover in Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial and cultural capital. Israel responded by moving troops and heavy weapons toward Gaza and authorizing the call-up of tens of thousands of reservists.

There was no word on where the two rockets aimed at Tel Aviv landed, raising the possibility they fell into the Mediterranean. A third rocket landed in an open area on the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv.

The fighting, the heaviest in four years, came after Israel launched a ferocious air assault Wednesday to stop repeated rocket fire from Gaza. The powerful Hamas military chief was killed in that strike, and another 18 Palestinians have died over two days, including five children. Some 100 Palestinians have been wounded.

Israeli warplanes struck dozens of Hamas-linked targets in Gaza on Thursday, sending loud booms echoing across the narrow Mediterranean coastal strip at regular intervals, followed by gray columns of smoke. After nightfall, several explosions shook Gaza City several minutes apart, a sign the strikes were not letting up, and the military said the targets were about 70 underground rocket-launching sites.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army was hitting Hamas hard with what he called surgical strikes, and warned of a "significant widening" of the Gaza operation. Israel will "continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people," said Netanyahu, who is up for re-election in January.

There were mounting signs of a ground operation. At least 12 trucks were seen transporting tanks and armored personnel carriers toward Gaza late Thursday, and a number of buses carrying soldiers arrived. Israeli TV stations said a Gaza incursion was expected on Friday, though military officials said no decision had been made.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he authorized the call-up of reservists, and the army said up to 30,000 additional troops could be drafted.

"We will continue the attacks and we will increase the attacks, and I believe we will obtain our objectives," said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief.

Hamas, meanwhile, warned it would strike deeper inside Israel with Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets, acknowledging for the first time it has such longer-range weapons capable of hitting targets some 47 miles (75 kilometers) away. Tel Aviv is 40 miles (70 kilometers) from Gaza.

By nightfall Thursday, Hamas said it had fired more than 350 rockets into Israel. Israel, which estimates Gaza militants have as many as 12,000 rockets, said some 220 rockets struck the Jewish state and another 130 were intercepted by an anti-missile shield.

Israel believes Hamas has significantly boosted its arsenal since the last Gaza war four years ago, including with weapons from Iran and from Libyan stockpiles plundered after the 2011 fall of the regime there.

"After four years, we became stronger, we have a strategy and we became united with all the military wings in Gaza," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, referring to Hamas' setbacks during Israel's last major offensive in late 2008.

In the current round of fighting, Israel is facing an emboldened Hamas with a stronger arsenal and greater regional backing. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, like Hamas a member of the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, said he was sending a high-level delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for the fellow Islamists there.

Both Israel and Hamas had largely observed an informal truce over the last four years, marred by occasional flare-ups. In recent days, however, border tensions escalated, then exploded into major violence Wednesday when Israel assassinated Hamas' secretive military chief, Ahmed Jabari, with a missile strike on his car.

Jabari led Hamas' 2007 takeover of the territory, turning small squads of Hamas gunmen into a fighting force and supervising Gaza's fledgling arms industry, including rocket production. He was long No. 1 on Israel's most-wanted list, particularly for his role in capturing Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit and holding him for more than five years.

On Thursday, Hamas gunmen fired machine guns in the air as frenzied mourners carried Jabari's body, wrapped in a white burial shroud, through the streets of Gaza City on a wooden stretcher. At the cemetery, young men surged toward the corpse, trying to touch Jabari's face before he was lowered into the grave in a chaotic scene.

Hamas' top leaders have dropped out of sight since the assassination, but it was not clear if they would be targets. The Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a televised speech Thursday that the group "will not forget and not forgive" the killing of Jabari.

Late Thursday, Hamas security said an Israeli navy vessel fired toward a building about 50 yards (meters) from Haniyeh's house, where a generator supplies electricity for the prime minister and his neighbors in Shati, a beach-front refugee camp in Gaza City. It was not clear if Haniyeh was home at the time.

In Israel, a rocket hit a four-story apartment building in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday, killing two men and a pregnant woman. A 4-year-old boy and two babies were wounded in the attack.

Many Gazans stayed indoors and streets were largely empty, though there was no sense of widespread panic. Some said Hamas should take revenge, even at the price of further Israeli retaliation.

"If Israel strikes us, we have to strike back," said Ahmed Barakat, a 33-year-old laborer from Gaza City attending the Jabari funeral. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

In Jerusalem, thousands of mourners attended the funeral of Mira Scharf, a 26-year-old mother of three who was killed in Thursday's rocket strike in Israel. Israeli media said she was pregnant and had recently returned to Israel from New Delhi to give birth.

In central Tel Aviv, Adrian Cisser, a 35-year-old electrician, was in a bicycle shop when an air raid siren went off.

"People on the street started running," he said. "The public shelter nearby was locked so we just stayed in the shop, and two minutes after it started we heard this big bang."

Cisser said he had gotten a preliminary call from the army and expects to be called up for reserve duty next week.

In the southern Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion, where a Hamas rocket landed in an empty field, a siren sent people rushing for shelter.

"There is panic in our house and we can hear shouts from the street," a resident who gave her first name, Lital, told the Israeli news site YNet. "Children were running away, trying to find shelter. It was very stressful. I am shaken up."

From Israel's perspective, Hamas escalated the fighting with a pair of attacks in recent days, an explosion in a tunnel along the Israeli border and a missile attack on an Israeli military jeep that seriously wounded four soldiers.

An Israeli ground offensive could be costly to both sides. In the last Gaza war, Israel devastated large areas of the territory, setting back Hamas' fighting capabilities but also paying the price of increasing diplomatic isolation because of the high civilian casualty toll.

The current round of fighting is reminiscent of the first days of Israel's three-week offensive against Hamas that began in December 2008. At the time, Israel also caught Hamas off-guard with a barrage of missile strikes and threatened to follow up with a ground offensive.

However, much has also changed since then.

Israel has improved its missile defense systems, but is facing a more heavily armed Hamas.

Netanyahu, who has clashed even with his allies over the deadlock in Mideast peace efforts, appears to have less diplomatic leeway than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, making a protracted military offensive harder to sustain.

The White House came out in support of Israel on Thursday, with spokesman Jay Carney saying there is "no justification" for rocket fire from Gaza and urging militants to stop "cowardly acts."

However, the regional constellation has changed dramatically since the last Gaza war. Hamas has emerged from its political isolation as its parent movement, the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, rose to power in several countries in the wake of last year's Arab Spring uprisings, particularly in Egypt.

On Thursday, the Egyptian president ordered his prime minister, Hesham Kandil, to lead a senior delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for Hamas. Morsi has called Israel's campaign against Hamas "unacceptable" and has recalled Egypt's ambassador to Israel in protest.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/signs-mount-possible-israeli-invasion-gaza-034125665.html

Signs mount of possible Israeli invasion of Gaza

By AMY TEIBEL and KARIN LAUB | Associated Press – 54 mins ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli aircraft targeted rocket launching operations of Gaza militants early Friday as troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers massed near the Palestinian territory, signaling a ground invasion might be growing near.

Fighting between the two sides escalated sharply Thursday with a first-ever militant attack on the Tel Aviv area, menacing Israel's heartland. No casualties were reported there, but three people died in the country's rocket-scarred south when a projectile slammed into an apartment building.

The death toll in the densely populated Palestinian territory climbed to 19, including five children, according to Palestinian health officials, as waves of Israeli fighter planes and drones sent missiles hurtling down on suspected weapons stores and rocket-launching sites.

Early Friday, 85 missiles exploded within 45 minutes in Gaza City, sending black pillars of smoke towering above the coastal strip's largest city. The military said it was targeting underground rocket launching sites.

One missile hit the Interior Ministry, a symbol of Hamas power, and another hit an empty house belonging to a senior Hamas commander. Those strikes, together with an attack on a generator building near the home of Gaza's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, signaled that Israel was expanding its offensive beyond military targets.

The fighting has already widened the instability gripping a region in the throes of war and regime upheavals. It has straining already frayed relations with Egypt, which was sending its prime minister to Gaza later Friday in a show of solidarity with its militant Hamas rulers.

Israel and Hamas had largely observed an informal truce since Israel's devastating incursion into Gaza four years ago, but rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes on militant operations didn't halt entirely. The latest flare-up exploded into major violence Wednesday when Israel assassinated Hamas' military chief, following up with a punishing air assault meant to cripple the militants' ability to terrorize Israel with rockets.

The Israeli military reported early Friday that its aircraft had struck more than 350 targets since the beginning of its operation against Hamas' rocket operations.

After nightfall Thursday, several explosions shook Gaza City several minutes apart, a sign the strikes were not letting up. The military said the targets were about 70 underground rocket-launching sites.

The Israeli offensive has not deterred the militants from striking back with more than 400 rockets aimed at southern Israel. For the first time, they also unleashed the most powerful weapons in their arsenal — Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv.

The two rockets that struck closest to Tel Aviv appear to have landed in the Mediterranean Sea, defense officials said, and another hit an open area on Tel Aviv's southern outskirts.

No injuries were reported, but the rocket fire — the first in the area from Gaza — sowed panic in Tel Aviv and made the prospect of a ground incursion more likely. The government later approved the mobilization of up to 30,000 reservists for a possible invasion.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army was hitting Hamas hard with what he called surgical strikes, and warned of a "significant widening" of the Gaza operation. Israel will "continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people," said Netanyahu, who is up for re-election in January.

At least 12 trucks were seen transporting tanks and armored personnel carriers toward Gaza late Thursday, and buses carrying soldiers headed toward the border area. Israeli TV stations said a Gaza operation was expected on Friday, though military officials said no decision had been made.

"We will continue the attacks and we will increase the attacks, and I believe we will obtain our objectives," said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief.

An Israeli ground offensive could be costly to both sides. In the last Gaza war, Israel devastated large areas of the territory, setting back Hamas' fighting capabilities but also paying the price of increasing diplomatic isolation because of a civilian death toll numbering in the hundreds.

The current round of fighting is reminiscent of the first days of that three-week offensive against Hamas. Israel also caught Hamas off guard then with a barrage of missile strikes and threatened to follow up with a ground offensive.

Much has changed since then.

Israel has improved its missile defense systems, but it is facing a more heavily armed Hamas. Israel estimates the militants have 12,000 rockets, including more sophisticated weapons from Iran and from Libyan stockpiles plundered after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime there last year.

Also, regional alignments have changed dramatically since the last Gaza war. Hamas has emerged from its political isolation as its parent movement, the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, has risen to power in several countries in the wake of last year's Arab uprisings, particularly in Egypt.

Egypt recalled its ambassador to protest the Israeli offensive and ordered its prime minister to lead a senior delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for Hamas.

At the same time, while relations with Israel have cooled since the toppling of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, Islamist President Mohammed Morsi has not brought a radical change in Egypt's policy toward Israel. He has promised to abide by Egypt's 1979 peace deal with Israel and his government has continued contacts with Israel through its non-Brotherhood members.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

:::clearing throat::::

Gooooo Israel!!!!!!

Israel can only take so much of an Islamic extremist rocket barrage before they are forced to fight back.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-pm-visit-gaza-support-hamas-against-israel-003232434.html

Egypt in Gaza truce bid as rocket jolts Tel Aviv

By Nidal al-Mughrabi | Reuters – 15 mins ago

GAZA (Reuters) - Egypt tried to open a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy in Gaza on Friday, but hopes for even a brief ceasefire while its prime minister was inside the bombarded enclave to talk to leaders of the Islamist Hamas movement were immediately dashed.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil visited the Gaza Strip officially to show solidarity with the Palestinian people after two days of relentless attacks by Israeli warplanes determined to end militant rocket fire at Israel.

A Palestinian official close to Egypt's mediators told Reuters Kandil's visit "was the beginning of a process to explore the possibility of reaching a truce. It is early to speak of any details or of how things will evolve".

Israel undertook to cease fire during the visit if Hamas did too. But it said rockets fired from Gaza hit several sites in southern Israel as he was in the enclave and has begun drafting 16,000 reserve troops, a possible precursor to invasion.

Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the border area of Friday and sirens sounded again over Tel Aviv, after witnesses in Gaza saw a long-range rocket launched. Israeli police said it landed in the sea off Israel's commercial centre.

A Hamas source said the Israeli air force launched an attack on the house of Hamas's commander for southern Gaza which resulted in the death of two civilians, one a child.

Israel's military strongly denied carrying out any attack from the time Kandil entered Gaza, and accused Hamas of violating the three-hour deal.

"Even though about 50 rockets have fallen in Israel over the past two hours, we chose not to attack in Gaza due to the visit of the Egyptian prime minister. Hamas is lying and reporting otherwise," the army said in a Twitter message.

Kandil said: "Egypt will spare no effort ... to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce."

At a Gaza hospital he held the bloodied body of a child. He left the Gaza Strip after meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the enclave's prime minister.

Palestinian medics said two people were killed in the disputed explosion at the house, one of them a child. It raised the Palestinian death toll since Wednesday to 22. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

The Palestinian dead include eight militants and 14 civilians, among them seven children and a pregnant woman. A Hamas rocket killed three Israeli civilians in a town north of Gaza, men and women in their 30s, hitting their apartment.

GERMANY BLAMES HAMAS

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East ablaze with two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to engulf the whole region.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Egypt to use its influence on Hamas to bring the violence to an end, her spokesman said, adding that Israel had the "right and obligation" to protect its population.

"Hamas in Gaza is responsible for the outbreak of violence," Merkel's spokesman Georg Streiter told a news conference. "There is no justification for the shooting of rockets at Israel, which has led to massive suffering of the civilian population."

Chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, whose efforts to achieve a treaty with Israel are scorned by Hamas as treason, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's "efforts are focused on one thing: deescalate the violence and save lives in Gaza. That's what we're hoping for."

"No amount of pressure can stop our efforts at the United Nations" to obtain a General Assembly vote at the end of the month granting observer status to the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, he said.

Hamas rejects the diplomacy of Abbas outright. But Erekat said: "It is our brothers' and sisters' blood. This is no time for internal squabbles or pointing fingers."

TEL AVIV

Air raid sirens wailed over Tel Aviv on Thursday evening, sending residents rushing for shelter, and two long-range rockets exploded just south of the metropolis. The location of the impacts was not disclosed.

They exploded harmlessly, police said. But they shook the 40 percent of Israelis who, until now, lived in safety beyond range of the southern rocket zone.

"Even Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu was rushed into a reinforced room," said cabinet minister Gilad Eldan.

Just as in late 2008, Israel's demands that Hamas and other militants stop firing rockets at southern towns appeared to be being ignored, and the fire was increasing.

The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, mostly civilian, and killed 13 Israelis.

THE MESSAGE

"If Hamas says it understands the message and commits to a long ceasefire, via the Egyptians or anyone else, this is what we want. We want quiet in the south and a stronger deterrence," Israeli vice prime minister Moshe Yaalon said.

"The Egyptians have been a pipeline for passing messages. Hamas always turns (to them) to request a ceasefire. We are in contact with the Egyptian defense ministry. And it could be a channel in which a ceasefire is reached," he told Israeli radio.

Tunisia's foreign minister was due to visit Gaza on Saturday "to provide all political support for Gaza" the spokesman for the Tunisian president, Moncef Marzouki, said in a statement.

On Israel's side of the border there were signs of possible preparations for a ground assault on Gaza. In pre-dawn strikes, warplanes bombed open land along the fence, in what could be a softening-up stage to clear the way for tanks.

The United States asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its rocket attacks.

EGYPT ON THE SPOT

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist. By contrast, Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognize Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

Abbas's supporters say they will push ahead with their plan to become an "observer state" rather than a mere "entity" at the United Nations later this month.

Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by allies of the Palestinians.

The conflict poses a test of Mursi's commitment to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which the West views as the bedrock of Middle East peace.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which brought him to power in an election after the downfall of pro-Western Hosni Mubarak, has called for a "Day of Rage" in Arab capitals on Friday.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said they had targeted over 450 "terror activity sites" in the Gaza Strip since Operation Pillar of Defence began with the assassination of Hamas' top military commander on Wednesday by an Israeli missile.

Some 150 medium range rocket launching sites and ammunition dumps were targeted overnight, the IDF said.

"The sites that were targeted were positively identified by precise intelligence over the course of months," it said. "The Gaza strip has been turned into a frontal base for Iran, forcing Israeli citizens to live under unbearable circumstances."