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Casualties Rise in Gaza Battle; Hamas Rockets Target Tel Aviv Israel and Hamas Step Up Air Attacks in Gaza Clash
(about 4 hours later)
KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel — Israel and Hamas widened their deadly conflict over Gaza on Thursday, as militants fired dozens of rockets — including one that killed three civilians in an apartment block in this small southern Israeli town — and two longer-range rockets aimed at Tel Aviv, causing no harm but triggering the first air raid warning there set off by incoming fire from Gaza. The death toll in Gaza from Israeli airstrikes rose to at least 19, including five children and a pregnant teenager. KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel — Israel and Hamas brushed aside international calls for restraint on Thursday and escalated their lethal conflict over Gaza, where Palestinian militants launched hundreds of rockets into Israeli territory, targeting Tel Aviv for the first time, and Israel intensified its aerial assaults and sent tanks rumbling toward the Gaza border for a possible invasion.
There was no sign that either side was prepared to dial back the confrontation that has threatened a new war in the Middle East, despite entreaties for restraint by world leaders including President Obama and Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, who planned a visit there in coming days. If anything, the Israelis intensified their attacks on Gaza after the Tel Aviv scare and made new moves toward a possible ground invasion. Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, expressing outrage over a pair of long-range Palestinian rockets that whizzed toward Tel Aviv and triggered the first air raid warning in the Israeli metropolis since it was threatened by Iraqi Scuds in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, said, “There will be a price for that escalation that the other side will have to pay.”
The Israeli deaths were the first since Israel’s military launched ferocious aerial assaults on Wednesday to stop the chronic rocket fire from Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave controlled by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group. He authorized the call-up of 30,000 army reservists if needed, another sign that Israel was preparing to invade Gaza for the second time in four years to crush what it considers an unacceptable security threat from smuggled rockets amassed by Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs the isolated coastal enclave and does not recognize Israel’s right to exist.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a cryptic statement that one of the two longer-range rockets aimed at Tel Aviv landed but did not hit the ground — meaning that it likely crashed into the Mediterranean Sea — and that the other appeared to have landed far outside the city. Exact locations were not specified. It was not clear whether the show of Israeli force on the ground in fact portended an invasion or was meant as more of an intimidation tactic to further pressure Hamas leaders, who had all been forced into hiding on Wednesday after the Israelis killed the group’s military chief in a pinpoint aerial bombing. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said he was prepared to “take whatever action is necessary.”
But the Tel Aviv air raid warnings — which residents of Israel’s largest metropolis had not heard except for drills or malfunctions since Saddam Hussein’s Scuds threatened them in the first Persian Gulf War, more than two decades ago — were a reminder of their vulnerability to an attack from Gaza, less than 40 miles away. They also underscored Israel’s stated reason for seeking to destroy the missile-launching sites in Gaza. Although Tel Aviv was not hit on Thursday and the rockets heading toward the city of 400,000 apparently fell harmlessly elsewhere, the ability of militants 40 miles away to fire those weapons underscored, in the Israeli government’s view, the justification for the intensive aerial assaults on hundreds of suspected rocket storage sites and other targets in Gaza.
Ehud Barak, the minister of defense, said the targeting of Tel Aviv and the scope of the Palestinian rocket fire “represents an escalation, and there will be a price for that escalation that the other side will have to pay.” Health officials in Gaza said at least 19 people, including five children and a pregnant teenager, had been killed over two days of nearly nonstop aerial attacks by Israel, and dozens had been wounded. Three Israelis were killed on Thursday in Kiryat Malachi, this small southern Israeli town, when a rocket fired from Gaza struck their apartment house.
Mr. Barak also dropped a further hint that planning for a ground invasion of Gaza had begun, saying he had instructed the army to broaden its draft of reservists to “be prepared for any kind of development if and when it will be required.” Israeli officials said 30,000 reservists could be called, and heavy machinery and tanks rumbled south along Israeli roads leading to Gaza on Thursday in preparation for a possible invasion. In a sign of solidarity with Hamas as well as a diplomatic move to ease the crisis, President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt ordered his prime minister to lead a delegation to Gaza on Friday. In another diplomatic signal, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, also planned to visit Jerusalem, Cairo and Ramallah, the West Bank headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, in coming days.
In Washington, Obama administration officials said they had asked friendly Arab countries with ties to Hamas, which the United States and Israel regard as a terrorist group, to use their influence to seek a way to defuse the hostilities. At the same time, however, a State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, reiterated to reporters the American position that Israel had a right to defend itself from the rocket fire and that the “onus was on Hamas” to stop it.
There was no sign that either side was prepared, at least not yet, to restore the uneasy truce that has mostly prevailed since the last time the Israelis invaded Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009, a three-week war that left 1,400 Palestinians dead and drew widespread international condemnation.
Denunciations of Israel for what critics called a renewal of its aggressive and disproportionate attacks spread quickly on the second day of the aerial assaults. The biggest criticism came from the 120-nation Nonaligned Movement, the largest bloc at the United Nations. In a statement released by Iran, which holds the group’s rotating presidency and is one of Israel’s most ardent foes, the group said: “Israel, the occupying power, is, once more, escalating its military campaign against the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip.” The group made no mention of the Palestinian rocket fire aimed at Israel but condemned “this act of aggression by the Israelis and their resort to force against the defenseless people” and demanded “decisive action by the U.N. Security Council.”
For his part, Mr. Netanyahu accused Hamas of placing thousands of smuggled rockets into civilian areas, including near schools and hospitals, and firing them randomly into Israel without regard to where they landed. “In the past 24 hours Israel has made it clear that it will not tolerate rocket and missile attacks on its civilians,” he said in a statement. “I hope that Hamas and the other terror organizations in Gaza got the message.”
The Israel Defense Forces said that within hours of the Tel Aviv air raid warning, they had attacked 70 underground rocket-launching sites in Gaza, and “direct hits were confirmed.” There were also unconfirmed reports that Israeli rockets had struck near Gaza’s Rafah crossing into Egypt, forcing the Egyptians to close it.The Israel Defense Forces said that within hours of the Tel Aviv air raid warning, they had attacked 70 underground rocket-launching sites in Gaza, and “direct hits were confirmed.” There were also unconfirmed reports that Israeli rockets had struck near Gaza’s Rafah crossing into Egypt, forcing the Egyptians to close it.
. Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said its aerial assaults had hit more than 300 sites in Gaza by late Thursday, and “we’ll continue tonight and tomorrow.” He also said militants in Gaza had fired more than 300 rockets into southern Israel and at least 130 more had been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile defense system.
Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said its aerial assaults had hit more than 200 sites in Gaza by late Thursday, and “we’ll continue tonight and tomorrow.” He also said militants in Gaza had fired about 300 rockets into southern Israel and at least 100 more had been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile defense system. In Gaza, health officials said, those who died Thursday included a 2-year-old boy who had been struck on Wednesday in the southern town of Khan Yunis, a 10-month-old girl wounded on Wednesday in the Zeitoun area and a child in the northern border town of Beit Hanoun. A 50-year-old man in Beit Lahiyeh, near the northern border, was killed Thursday afternoon when he was buried by sand after a bomb exploded nearby. Others killed Thursday included two brothers in Beit Hanoun, two Hamas members of a rocket-launching squad in Beit Lahiyeh, and three other Hamas fighters killed in a single strike in Khan Yunis.
The Israeli aerial assault on Gaza that began on Wednesday was the most intense military operation by Israel in Gaza since an invasion four years ago. Southern Israel had been the target of more than 750 rockets fired from Gaza this year that hit homes and caused injuries. Among the dozens fired on Thursday was one that smashed into a four-story apartment building in Kiryat Malachi, which means City of Angels, and resulted in the first Israeli civilian deaths.
The regional perils of the situation sharpened as President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt warned that his country stood by the Palestinians against what he termed Israeli aggression, echoing similar condemnation on Wednesday. It was just after 8 a.m. when the sirens blared in Kiryat Malachi, a largely working-class town of 20,000 about 15 miles north of Gaza, which had not suffered a direct hit by rockets from Gaza before.
“The Egyptian people, the Egyptian leadership, the Egyptian government and all of Egypt is standing with all its resources to stop this assault, to prevent the killing and the bloodshed of Palestinians,” Mr. Morsi said in nationally televised remarks before a crisis meeting of senior ministers. He also instructed his prime minister to lead a delegation to Gaza on Friday and said he had contacted President Obama to discuss strategies to “stop these acts and doings and the bloodshed and aggression.” One of the top-floor apartments was home to the Scharf family, a couple in their 20s with a boy, 4, and a girl of 8 months. Neighbors said they had recently come from India, where they were emissaries for the Chabad-Lubavitch organization of Hasidic Jews. At the incoming rocket alert they did not rush for the relative safety of the stairwell as many of the neighbors did, perhaps not knowing the drill.
In language that reflected the upheaval in the political dynamics of the Middle East since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak last year, Mr. Morsi said, “Israelis must realize that we don’t accept this aggression, and it could only lead to instability in the region and has a major negative impact on stability and security in the region.” In the adjacent apartment, Yitzhak Amsalem, also in his 20s, ignored his mother’s pleas to take shelter. Instead he and Aharon Smadja, a rabbi and a friend, stood by the window, eager to photograph “the fireworks,” neighbors said.
The thrust of Mr. Morsi’s words seemed confined to diplomatic maneuvers, including calls to Mr. Ban, the United Nations secretary general; the head of the Arab League; and President Obama. When the rocket crashed into the top of building, Mr. Amsalem and Mr. Smadja, and Mira Scharf, the mother of two, were killed.
An Israeli official confirmed that Mr. Ban would be coming to the region on Tuesday and holding meetings in Jerusalem, Cairo and Ramallah, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. He is not expected to go to Gaza and it was not immediately clear whether he would be coming with a plan.
The 120-nation Nonaligned Movement, the biggest bloc at the United Nations, added its condemnation of the Gaza airstrikes in a statement released by Iran, which holds the group’s rotating presidency and is one of Israel’s most ardent foes. “Israel, the occupying power, is, once more, escalating its military campaign against the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip,” the group’s coordinating bureau said in the statement. The group made no mention of the Palestinian rocket fire but condemned “this act of aggression by the Israelis and their resort to force against the defenseless people” and demanded “decisive action by the U.N. Security Council.”
In his conversation with Mr. Obama, Mr. Morsi said, he had “clarified Egypt’s role and Egypt’s position; our care for the relations with the United States of America and the world; and at the same time our complete rejection of this assault and our rejection of these actions, of the bloodshed, and of the siege on Palestinians and their suffering.”
In Washington, Obama administration officials said they had asked Egypt to use its influence with Hamas to help end the fighting. But Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, told reporters that “the onus was on Hamas” to stop the rocket attacks that had provoked Israel.
Southern Israel has been the target of more than 750 rockets fired from Gaza this year that have hit homes and caused injuries. The one that smashed into the top floor of an apartment building in Kiryat Malachi, about 15 miles north of Gaza, on Thursday killed two men and one woman, according to officials and witnesses at the scene. A baby was among the injured and several Israelis were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds after rockets hit other southern cities and towns, they said. The apartment house is close to a field in a blue-collar neighborhood and the rocket tore open top-floor apartments, leaving twisted metal window frames and bloodstains.
Nava Chayoun, 40, who lives on the second floor, said her husband, Yitzhak, ran up the stairs immediately after the rocket struck and saw the body of a woman on the floor. He rescued two children from the same apartment and afterward, she said, she and her family “read Psalms.”
It was the first time that a building in Kiryat Malachi had been struck. With schools closed after Wednesday’s turmoil, residents said, many people had stayed home with their children.
Residents said people living on the lower floors of the apartment house had taken cover in stairwells, as the police urge residents to do when they hear warning sirens, but those on the top floor apparently had not.
In Gaza, health officials said, those killed on Thursday included a 2-year-old boy who had been struck on Wednesday in the southern town of Khan Yunis, a 10-month-old girl wounded on Wednesday in the Zeitoun area and a child in the northern border town of Beit Hanoun. A 50-year-old man in Beit Lahiyeh, near the northern border, was killed Thursday afternoon when he was buried by sand after a bomb exploded nearby. Others killed Thursday included two brothers in Beit Hanoun, two Hamas members of a rocket-launching squad in Beit Lahiyeh, and three other Hamas fighters killed in a single strike in Khan Yunis.
The Gazan children who have died so far were aged 10 months, 11 months and 3 years, according to health officials. The victims also include a 19-year-old woman who was six months pregnant, and two men over 55.
Hundreds of Gazans, defying Israeli warnings to stay indoors, took part on Thursday in the funeral of Ahmed al-Jabari, the Hamas military leader who was killed the day before in a pinpoint bombing attack on his car in Gaza. Other Hamas leaders, however, did not attend.
As the procession wound its way through the streets from Mr. Jabari’s home to a mosque, the participants sometimes broke into a jog as Israeli warplanes dropped bombs nearby. Shops were closed in Gaza, and the streets were empty.

Isabel Kershner reported from Kiryat Malachi, Israel, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Rina Castelnuovo from Kiryat Malachi, Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem and Alan Cowell from Paris.

Isabel Kershner reported from Kiryat Malachi, Israel, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Rina Castelnuovo from Kiryat Malachi, Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem and Alan Cowell from Paris.

Isabel Kershner reported from Kiryat Malachi, Israel, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Rina Castelnuovo from Kiryat Malachi, Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem and Alan Cowell from Paris.