Gaza: Israel pounded Gaza for a fifth day on Saturday as it vowed no let-up in its air campaign to halt rocket attacks by fighters, which has killed more than 120 Palestinians.
Hamas said Israel for the first time also hit a pair of mosques in its offensive. It hopes the incident will galvanise support in the Muslim world.
“The bombing of two mosques in Gaza overnight shows how barbaric this enemy is and how much is it hostile to Islam,” said Husam Badran, a Hamas spokesman in Doha, Qatar. “This terrorism gives us the right to broaden our response to deter this occupier.”
Gaza fighters have fired nearly 700 rockets and mortars toward Israel in five days of fighting. The Iron Dome, a US-funded, Israel-developed rocket defence system, has intercepted more than 130 incoming rockets, preventing any Israeli fatalities so far.
Israel’s military says it has struck more than 1,100 targets, including rocket launchers, command centres and weapon manufacturing and storage facilities, delivering a devastating blow to the fighters.
The offensive is the heaviest fighting since a similar eight-day campaign in November 2012.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians and their international supporters are discussing a United Nations draft resolution that would condemn all violence against civilians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and call for “an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire.”
However, the Palestinian draft makes no mention of the firing of hundreds of rockets into Israel by Hamas, likely making it unacceptable to the United States if it was introduced in the UN Security Council.
Meanwhile, a defiant Hamas fired five more rockets into Israel as the movement rejected growing international calls for a halt to hostilities, insisting Israel must act first.
Diplomatic efforts to stop the violence saw US President Barack Obama telephoning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Washington offering to use its relationships in the Middle East to bring about a return to calm.
But speaking at a news conference in Tel Aviv on Friday, Netanyahu said he would not end the military campaign until he achieved his goal of stopping the Hamas fire and preparations gathered pace for a possible ground assault.
“No international pressure will prevent us from striking, with all force, against the terrorist organisation which calls for our destruction,” he said.
“No terrorist target in Gaza is immune.”
Despite international concern, truce efforts have been unsuccessful, according to Egypt, which has been key in mediating previous ceasefires between Hamas and Israel.
“Egypt has communicated with all sides to halt violence against civilians and called on them to continue with the truce agreement signed in November 2012,” the foreign ministry said.
“Unfortunately, these efforts... have met with stubbornness.”
After weeks of rocket fire into its southern flank, Israel appeared bent on dealing a fatal blow to Hamas.
Esmail Haniya, Gaza’s former premier and the most senior Hamas official in the coastal enclave, ruled out any halt to hostilities.
“[Israel] is the one that started this aggression and it must stop, because we are [simply] defending ourselves,” he said.
Israel says preparations are under way for a possible ground attack, with tanks and artillery massed along the border and some 33,000 reservists mobilised out of 40,000 approved by the cabinet.
More armour was seen heading south on Saturday morning.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he expected a political decision on a possible ground operation by Sunday.
“At the moment we are dealing with the first phase... air attacks,” he told Channel One television.
“I imagine we shall decide tomorrow [Saturday] or the day after on the next stage.”
Early on Saturday, 16 Palestinians died in a wave of Israeli air strikes, taking the overall death toll to 121, medics said.
So far, no one in Israel has been killed. Two have been seriously wounded, including a man at a petrol station hit by a rocket.
In northern Israel, at least one rocket fired from Lebanon struck an open area near the town of Metula on Friday, prompting troops to respond with shelling, the army said.
The military believed a Palestinian group fired it in solidarity with Hamas, public radio reported.
The escalating violence brought more offers of truce negotiations from the White House on Friday.
“There are a number of relationships the United States has that we are willing to leverage in the region to try to bring about an end to the rocket fire that’s originating in Gaza and, as we saw this morning, in Lebanon,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Friday.
He referred to taking steps as the US and Egypt did in November 2012 to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas.
Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Gaza brought a rebuke from the UN’s human rights office over the number of civilian casualties.
“Even when a home is identified as being used for military purposes, any attack must be proportionate... and precautions must be taken to protect civilians,” said spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani.
