Israelis Continue To Launch Air Attacks On Gaza For The Fourth Straight Day

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Monday March 12, 2012 23:37 by lefty

Israeli war planes struck at the Gaza Strip and Palestinians fired more rockets against southern Israel on Monday in a fourth day of hostilities in which 25 Palestinians have been killed.

Egyptian efforts to broker a ceasefire appeared to be stuck over a demand by the Islamic Jihad militant group that Israel first promise not to target militant leaders for future attack.

The violence also drew condemnation from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon, who called for restraint. The Arab League also urged the United Nations to intervene to stop the conflict.

Twenty of the Palestinians killed since fighting flared in the Hamas-controlled enclave last Friday were militants and five were civilians, according to medical officials.

At least 80 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and eight people in Israel have been wounded.

The Israeli air strikes on Monday killed four Palestinian militants and an elderly man and his daughter, the officials said. The most recent attack came after nightfall, killing two militants near Gaza City, medics said.

A 15-year-old Palestinian youth died in an earlier explosion that Palestinians blamed on an Israeli missile. The Israeli military denied it had carried out a strike.

About 40 rockets, at least 20 of them intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system, were fired at Israel, wounding three people, Israeli police said. Three of these rockets struck in the city of Ashkelon just before the latest Israeli air strike.

Gaza's Hamas leadership, whose own cadres have kept out of the fighting, said on Sunday that neighboring Egypt was working to stop the violence and consulting with other militants.

A Palestinian official close to the mediation told Reuters that Israel had agreed to a midnight ceasefire.

But Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed faction behind most of the rocket fire, said any truce should include an undertaking by Israel "to end assassinations".

The exchanges began after two chiefs of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) faction, accused by Israel of planning to attack it through Egypt's Sinai desert, were killed in an Israeli strike on Friday.

Israel signaled that it would not halt what it calls "preventive targeting" operations aimed at stopping rocket fire and cross-border attacks.

"The Israeli army will continue to attack the terrorists in Gaza with strength and determination," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He also told members of his Likud party in parliament that the Israeli military was prepared to widen its operations and continue them for as long as necessary.

That prospect would revive memories of the 2008-2009 Gaza war in which about 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

FULL STORY HERE . . . .

related links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXpR0NdKNP0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzxgpLEEnYs