GAZA/JERUSALEM, (Reuters) – An Israeli air strike in Gaza killed the wife and infant son of Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Deif, the group said, calling it an attempt to assassinate him after a ceasefire collapsed.
Palestinians launched more than 180 rockets on Tuesday and yesterday, mainly at southern Israel, with some intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, the military said. No casualties were reported on the Israeli side.
Egypt, which has been trying to broker a long-term ceasefire in indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks, said it would continue contacts with both sides, whose delegates left Cairo after the hostilities resumed on Tuesday.
But there appeared to be no end in sight to violence that shattered a 10-day period of calm, the longest break from fighting since Israel launched its Gaza offensive on July 8 with the declared aim of ending rocket fire into its territory.
Israeli aircraft have carried out more than 100 strikes in the Gaza Strip since Tuesday, Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon said, the military adding it was “targeting terror sites”.
Hamas and medical officials said 23 people had died in the latest Israeli raids, including Deif’s wife and seven-month-old son. Deif is widely believed to be masterminding the Islamist group’s military campaign from underground bunkers.
A Hamas official said Deif, head of Hamas’s Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, had not used the targeted house, from whose rubble the bodies of three members of the family that lived there were also pulled out.
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said in a televised statement addressing Israel “you have failed and you have missed” Deif in the attack.
Chanting “Qassam, bomb Tel Aviv!”, thousands of Palestinians later attended the funeral of Deif’s wife and son in Jabalya refugee camp. The woman’s mother told reporters she wished she had “another 100 daughters” to offer Deif in marriage.
Accusing Israel of opening a “gateway to hell”, Hamas fired rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem late on Tuesday, demonstrating the Islamist movement could still reach Israel’s heartland despite heavy Israeli bombardments in the five-week conflict.
There was no confirmation from Israel that it had tried to kill Deif, who has been targeted in air strikes at least four times since the mid-1990s. Israel holds him responsible for the deaths of dozens of its citizens in suicide bombings.
“ALL OPTIONS OPEN”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to say whether Deif had been targeted, but he reaffirmed Israel’s longstanding policy of considering militant leaders as legitimate targets, adding that “none are immune” from attack.
Netanyahu said Israel’s Gaza campaign could last for a while. “This will be a continuous campaign,” he told a news conference in Tel Aviv, giving a vague description of Israel’s goals as seeking “calm and safety” for Israeli citizens.
