Israel yesterday threatened a wide-scale military operation against the Gaza Strip after a string of air strikes, which injured three Palestinian children following rocket attacks from the enclave.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom warned the military would soon launch a new offensive on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip unless the rocket fire was halted.
“If this rocket fire against Israel does not stop, it seems we will have to raise the level of our activity and step up our actions against Hamas,” Shalom told public radio.
“We won’t allow frightened children to again be raised in bomb shelters and so, in the end, it will force us to launch another military operation,” he said.
“I hope we can avoid it, but it is one of the options we have, and if we don't have a choice, we will use it in the near future,” he added.
Three Palestinian children — aged two, four and 11 — were hit by flying glass in one of Israel's six overnight raids, said Moawiya Hassanein, head of the Palestinian emergency services in Gaza.
There were no other reports of casualties.
Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, reacted by blaming the Jewish state for the increase in tensions.
“We call on the international community to intervene to stop this escalation and Israeli aggression,” Haniyeh said in a statement.
Britain yesterday expressed concern at the escalation in and around Gaza, calling for restraint and the launch of US-backed indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
“We are concerned by today's strikes and the escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel over the past week. We call on all parties to show restraint,” a foreign office spokeswoman said. “We encourage Israelis and Palestinians to focus efforts on negotiation and to engage urgently in US-backed proximity talks.”
The air strikes came after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants landed near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon late on Thursday, causing damage but no casualties, the army said.
Underscoring the tensions, warning sirens wailed across Ashkelon again yesterday morning, sending residents scurrying for shelters, but the army said it was a false alarm.
Nearly 20 rockets have been fired into Israel in the past month, including one that killed a Thai farm worker, in the worst spate of violence since the end of Israel's 22-day assault on the territory launched in December 2008.
Since the war, which killed some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, Israel has routinely responded to sporadic rocket fire with air raids against smuggling tunnels and workshops that it says are used to make rockets.
Three of the Israeli strikes overnight targeted an area near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. Two missiles hit a guard post of Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
A fourth raid destroyed a workshop in the refugee camp of Nusseirat, in central Gaza, Hamas and witnesses said. In the other air strikes, a small dairy factory was destroyed in western Gaza City.
The military said it hit “a weapons manufacturing site in the northern Gaza Strip, a weapons manufacturing site in the central Gaza Strip and two weapons storage facilities in the southern Gaza Strip.”
“The [army] holds Hamas as solely responsible for maintaining peace and quiet in the Gaza Strip,” the military said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique