Israel on Wednesday authorised the army to forge deeper into Gaza and to step up attacks on the Hamas-led government after Islamist militants launched an unprecedented rocket strike on the Jewish state.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s security Cabinet ordered the military to intensify air raids against Hamas as well as so-called targeted killing operations against militants who launch or order rocket attacks.
The army was also given the go-ahead to increase an assault on northern Gaza by surrounding two key towns and enlarging an interdiction zone to be enforced by aircraft and artillery in a bid to stave off rocket attacks.
The decisions followed the most spectacular operation against Israel since a soldier was captured 10 days ago, plunging the Middle East in a fresh crisis, when Hamas militants fired a new type of rocket into the heart of Ashkelon.
The first Qassam rocket to hit the centre of the southern coastal town ploughed into a school, causing no injuries but drawing furious calls for retribution from members of the Israeli government.
“The goals we have set forth remain: releasing the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit and stopping projectile fire,” said a security Cabinet statement.
As a result, the Cabinet instructed the defence establishment to prepare “for prolonged and graduated security activity”.
The goals of the campaign were described as “damaging Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza, with an emphasis on institutions and terror infrastructure”, and “reducing terrorists’ freedom of movement by continuing to section off the Gaza Strip and striking at infrastructures that serve terrorism”.
Olmert himself branded the rocket attack on Ashkelon an “unprecedented and severe escalation in the terrorist war being waged by Hamas”, which would have “unprecedented and far-reaching consequences”.
But Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said Israel’s plans to enlarge an interdiction zone in northern Gaza will only make matters worse.
“Israel is using the recent developments as a pretext to impose faits accompli. A security zone will not solve the problem, but on the contrary, help further the escalation and complications,” Erekat said.
Repeated calls for restraint from the international community have largely fallen on deaf ears in what has become the worst Middle East crisis since Hamas came to power in March and Olmert formally took the Israeli helm in May.
Overnight, Israeli warplanes attacked the Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza City for the second time in a week, causing heavy damage and wounding four Palestinians, local medical sources said.
Israeli aircraft also pounded other targets in Gaza for the eighth consecutive night as the crisis sparked by the June 25 abduction of the 19-year-old Shalit continued to mount.
As dozens of Israeli tanks, bulldozers and personnel carriers edged into Gaza from the north and more forces were poised to thrust into the strip from the south, the expected major offensive appeared closer than ever.
The return of ground troops to what is one of the most-densely populated areas on earth comes less than 10 months after Israel executed its historic withdrawal from the territory last September following a 38-year occupation.
“Many people here are ready to leave their homes and flee the neighbourhood,” said Abu Anas (23) as tanks, bulldozers and troops churned the farmland around Beit Hanun and neighbouring Beit Lahiya.
Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a member of Israel’s security Cabinet, said “systematic operations to liquidate terrorist chiefs were the only possible response” unless Palestinians halted their rocket attacks.
But claiming the rocket strike, the armed wing of Hamas vowed to step up its attacks after Israel rejected a prisoner swap and pressed on with its Gaza offensive.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said it launched a “new type of rocket” with a longer range than those fired daily at Israel in recent days, promising “a new era of violence” if the Jewish state did not stop its military operation.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian militant who belonged to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a rival faction to the Qassam Brigades, and who was wanted for killing two Israelis in 2000.
Following the expiry on Tuesday of an ultimatum set by Shalit’s Palestinian captors, Olmert again ruled out negotiations with militants and promised to strike anyone linked to them, in a thinly veiled reference to Syria.
Israel said the captive soldier remained alive after being seized and wounded 10 days ago in a Palestinian raid.
The shadowy Army of Islam, one of three groups that claims to be holding Shalit in the Gaza Strip, said on Tuesday he would not be killed.
The group, together with the armed wing of the governing Hamas movement and the Popular Resistance Committees, snatched Shalit in a raid on an army post on June 25 in which two other soldiers and two militants were killed.
The Prime Minister of the Hamas-led government, Ismail Haniya, said his administration continued to appeal for soldier’s life and good treatment.
Israeli armour combing the northern Gaza Strip and looking for tunnels used by militants shot and seriously wounded a Palestinian in the town of Beit Lahiya early Wednesday, Palestinian medical sources said.
Concerns have been voiced for the humanitarian plight of the 1,4-million living in the impoverished Gaza, grappling with food, fuel and power cuts. — AFP