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JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister on Monday signaled no quick end to the three-week-old Gaza war, telling Israelis that they must prepare themselves for more fighting in order to crush what he described as the double threat of rockets and “death tunnels” into Israel dug by Hamas and its associates.
JERUSALEM — An informal lull between Israel and Hamas timed for the start of a Muslim holiday collapsed into deadly violence on Monday and Israel’s prime minister signaled no quick end to the three-week-old Gaza war, advising Israelis that “patience and determination” were needed.
The speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a televised address came after an informal lull by both sides in deference to a Muslim holiday was shattered by explosions that hit a children’s play area in a Palestinian refugee camp near Gaza City and killed at least 10, explosions near Gaza’s main hospital, a mortar attack that killed four Israeli soldiers on Israel’s side of the border, and what Israel called a foiled infiltration by Gaza gunmen through one of the tunnels. The number of casualties in that confrontation was not immediately clear.
Despite intensifying outside pressure for a cease-fire, no diplomatic way out was in sight.
There was no indication that either Israel or Hamas, the main militant group in Gaza, were prepared to embrace growing calls for an immediate halt to the conflict.
A day of relatively low-level hostilities erupted by late afternoon into a series of bloody events in quick succession. An explosion at Gaza’s Shati refugee camp killed 10 Palestinians, mostly children playing outdoors, and another blast damaged an outside wall of Gaza’s main hospital compound.
“Israeli citizens cannot live with the threat from rockets and from death tunnels — death from above and from below,” Mr. Netanyahu said in his televised remarks. He said Israelis would not “end this operation without neutralizing the tunnels, whose sole purpose is killing our citizens.”
Hamas blamed Israel for both strikes but the Israeli military insisted it had not carried out any attacks in those areas and said the blasts were caused by misfired Hamas rockets meant to hit Israel.
More than 1,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and at least 48 Israeli soldiers and three civilians on the Israeli side have been killed in the conflict. Efforts by the United Nations Security Council and Secretary of State John Kerry to achieve even a temporary halt in the fighting have proved ineffective so far.
Mortar rounds fired from Gaza killed four Israeli soldiers at a staging area on the Israeli side of the border, and Palestinian gunmen emerged from a tunnel running beneath the border and clashed with Israeli soldiers. The military said the gunmen had intended to attack civilians in a nearby Israeli border community. One militant was killed in the clash.
Mr. Netanyahu did not announce an immediate broadening of the ground invasion in Gaza or any change in its stated goals of destroying Hamas’s rocket and tunnel infrastructure. But he suggested that the military campaign required “perseverance and determination,” and said that the demilitarization of Gaza had to be “part of any solution, and the international community must demand that.”
There were reports of more Israeli casualties but the military did not provide details.
His defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, spoke of a campaign that could last “more long days.”
“We will not complete the operation without neutralizing the tunnels,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a televised address. “This is the clear and unequivocal objective of the state of Israel and the need for it has been apparent again today.”
Mr. Netanyahu did not announce any immediate change in the stated goals of the operation, which have been defined as severely damaging Hamas’s rocket and tunnel infrastructure, but all the indications were that the fighting would intensify.
By Monday evening the Israeli military said it had warned Palestinian civilians in several areas of the eastern and northern Gaza Strip to evacuate their homes “immediately,” through phone calls and text messages, and it stepped up airstrikes and shelling in the north and south of the Gaza Strip, killing at least 23 Palestinians overnight, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
A fifth Israeli soldier was killed in combat in southern Gaza and Hamas fired rockets deep into Israel.
At around midnight flares lit up Gaza City, and early Tuesday morning Israeli warplanes attacked the house of Ismail Haniya, the deputy chief of the Hamas movement, in the Shati refugee camp on the western edge of the city, according to witnesses and the Hamas news media.
Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli defense minister, spoke of a campaign that could last “more long days.”
“If the terrorist organizations in Gaza think they can break Israel and its citizens,” Mr. Yaalon said, “they will come to understand in the next few days that this is not the case.”
“If the terrorist organizations in Gaza think they can break Israel and its citizens,” Mr. Yaalon said, “they will come to understand in the next few days that this is not the case.”
Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, has framed the Gaza fighting as resistance against an enemy that has kept the Mediterranean enclave of 1.7 million Palestinians isolated and deprived, despite promises in a 2012 truce agreement that halted the last spate of intense fighting.
International pressure for a cease-fire has grown with alarm over the soaring casualty figures, mostly in Gaza. More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed, the majority civilians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. At least 48 Israeli soldiers and three civilians on the Israeli side have been killed.
Israel and Hamas accused each other of responsibility for the explosions at the Shati refugee camp and Shifa Hospital. Hamas and its affiliates said Israeli aerial attacks were responsible. The Israelis said errant Palestinian rockets that had been aimed at Israel but misfired were the cause.
The secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, joined the Security Council in calling for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire, telling reporters in New York, “Gaza is in a critical condition. Israeli missiles have pummeled Gaza. Hamas rockets have randomly struck Israel.”
Later, Israel’s military reported four Israeli soldiers were killed by mortar rounds fired from the Gaza side at an Israeli military staging area, and a fifth Israeli soldier was killed in combat in southern Gaza. The Israeli military also reported an infiltration attempt via tunnel near Nahal Oz, a community near the Gaza border, by gunmen who fired at soldiers, and that at least one of the gunmen had been killed. There were unconfirmed reports that some Israeli soldiers had been killed as well.
Mr. Netanyahu criticized the Security Council’s statement earlier Monday, saying that it “related to the needs of a murderous terrorist organization that attacks Israeli citizens,” referring to Hamas, “and does not address the security needs of Israel.”
Soon after, Hamas fired barrages of rockets deep into Israel, setting off sirens as far north as the Haifa area. The Israeli military said it had warned Palestinian civilians in several areas of the eastern and northern Gaza Strip to evacuate their homes “immediately,” through phone calls and text messages, signaling further escalation.
Mr. Netanyahu reiterated his demand that the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip “must be part of any solution.”
Late Monday night, the Health Ministry in Gaza reported at least eight Palestinians were killed and 10 wounded from what it described as intensive Israeli airstrikes and tank shelling in both the northern and southern areas of Gaza.
In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry, who spent much of last week in a frustrated effort to achieve even a temporary halt to the fighting, said, “We also believe that any process to resolve the crisis in Gaza in a lasting and meaningful way must lead to the disarmament of Hamas and all terrorist groups.”
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that at least 10 children were killed as they played in a park in the Shati refugee camp on the western edge of Gaza City. The Palestinian agency attributed the explosions to Israeli missiles. Gaza’s Health Ministry, offering a slightly different account, said the dead included at least eight children and two adults.
He also clearly referenced the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire and a role for the Palestinian Authority after his effort fell short and was harshly criticized by Israelis and the West Bank-based Palestinian leadership. Obama administration officials said Monday that the criticism of Mr. Kerry was unwarranted.
But Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military, denied that Israel had carried out any attacks at Shati or near the main Gaza City hospital, Shifa, saying those blasts “have absolutely nothing to do with us.” The Israeli military said the explosions had been caused by militant rockets aimed at Israel that had gone astray.
The day began with a fragile, unsigned calm meant to usher in Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that ends the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said the army had “toned down its activities” and was only “combating tunnels on the one hand and responding to Hamas aggression on the other.”
The missile or rocket explosion near Shifa hit an outside wall of the compound, about 200 yards from the main entrance, and caused damage but no casualties. Plainclothes security officers barred reporters from entering the compound to get close to where the rocket or missile fell.
After three weeks of hostilities broken only by a couple of brief humanitarian pauses, Eid al-Fitr was supposed to offer respite to both sides and stirred hopes that the hiatus could create the basis for a more formal cease-fire.
The fragility of the unsigned calm had been foreshadowed earlier in the day when several rockets and mortars were fired into Israel. A Palestinian man and a 4-year-old boy were reportedly killed by an Israeli airstrike and artillery fire, and an Israeli soldier was wounded in a gunfight in northern Gaza.
People came out onto the streets in Gaza City and displaced families filled the Unknown Soldiers Park.
The informal lull, after three weeks of fighting broken only by a couple of brief humanitarian pauses, had been meant to provide a respite for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that ends the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Colonel Lerner, the spokesman for the Israeli military, said the army had “toned down its activities to the level where we are combating tunnels on the one hand and responding to Hamas aggression on the other.”
But the respite’s short duration was foreshadowed early in the day when several rockets and mortars were fired into Israel, and the Israeli military responded with an airstrike and artillery fire, killing a Palestinian man and a 4-year-old boy, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
There was a marked decrease in rocket and mortar fire against Israel for much of the day. Hamas had called for a 24-hour cease-fire starting Sunday afternoon, hours after Israel declared that it was abandoning an earlier 24-hour pause because of heavy rocket fire. Israel did not publicly respond to Hamas’s belated call.
The back-and-forth volleying extended into the afternoon, then disaster struck.
The relative calm came after a statement by the United Nations Security Council supporting the call for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. On Sunday, President Obama called Mr. Netanyahu and expressed growing concern about the rising death toll and urged Israel to embrace an immediate truce, and Secretary of State John Kerry also kept up his efforts to attain a long-term cease-fire.
Munther al-Dirby, 25, said he was sitting on a sidewalk in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp watching children play when two missiles crashed down.
Mr. Netanyahu spoke with the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, later Monday and strongly criticized the Security Council’s call for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire. Mr. Netanyahu said the Security Council’s statement “related to the needs of a murderous terrorist organization that attacks Israeli citizens,” referring to Hamas, “and does not address the security needs of Israel,” according to a statement from Mr. Netanyahu’s office. He called on the international community to act to demilitarize the Gaza Strip.
“I grabbed my son and when I looked up, everyone was scattered in the street,” he said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also criticized the Security Council’s statement, saying that while the Palestinians welcomed the call for a cease-fire, it fell short by failing to address the underlying causes of the escalation, including “the continued Israeli occupation” and “the denial of basic Palestinian rights.”
Two small craters punctured the asphalt. Shrapnel had shattered the windows of cars and sprayed holes in nearby walls. As ambulances brought the dead one-by-one from the hospital back to the neighborhood, young men held the bodies aloft on stretchers and crowds followed them to the cemetery, chanting, “God is Great!” and “Children are the beloved of God.”
The Palestine Liberation Organization, dominated by the mainstream Fatah faction, has also strongly criticized Mr. Kerry’s efforts, faulting his meetings on Saturday in Paris with European, Qatari and Turkish officials, which took place without Egyptian or P.L.O. representatives. The P.L.O. also accused the participants in those meetings of trying to circumvent the roles of Egypt and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and leader of the P.L.O.
At around the same time another explosion collapsed part of a wall surrounding a building belonging to Shifa Hospital. The blast left a two-foot-deep crater but caused no injuries. The building was marked as an outpatient department but it was clear that it was unused, with missing windows and closed gate.
Underscoring the uneasy, unilateral nature of the latest lull and the lack of coordination between the sides, with each reluctant to be led by the other, Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said in a statement Monday morning: “The occupation still rejects any cease-fire related to the Eid. This is a disregard for Muslims’ feelings and their worship. The occupation will bear the responsibility for this escalation and the denial of the Muslims’ worship.”
The Interior Ministry in Gaza said that Israel’s assertion that Palestinian rockets were responsible for the strikes at Shifa and the Shati camp was “a failed attempt to escape from its responsibility for these crimes” and said the bomb squad had “seized remains and ordnance of Israeli shells that landed in these places.”
The fighting began July 8 with an aerial campaign that Israel said was meant to quell Palestinian rocket fire, and led to an Israeli ground offensive. That offensive has focused on Hamas’s tunnels, which the Israelis say have turned out to be far more developed than they had thought.
The Israeli military said its radars and sensors had detected the paths of four “terrorist rockets” fired at that time and distributed an aerial photograph tracing their routes.
About 170,000 Palestinians, roughly a tenth of the population of Gaza, remain displaced, many of them sheltered in United Nations schools and facilities around the Gaza Strip.
Besides the two that landed at Shifa and Shati, the military said, one fell into the sea and the other was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile defense system en route to the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
