An Israeli air strike in Gaza yesterday killed the wife and infant son of Hamas’ military leader, Mohammed Deif, the group said, calling it an attempt to assassinate him after a ceasefire collapsed.
Palestinians launched more than 100 rockets, 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 hostilities resumed on Tuesday.
Photo: Reuters
However, 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.
Israeli aircraft have carried out 80 strikes in the Gaza Strip since Tuesday, “targeting terror sites,” the military said.
Hamas and medical officials said 19 people 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 had not used the targeted house, where the bodies of three members of the family that lived there were also pulled out of the rubble.
Accusing Israel of opening a “gateway to hell,” Hamas fired rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem late on Tuesday.
There was no official 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.
“I am convinced that if there was intelligence that Mohammed Deif was not inside the home, then we would not have bombed it,” Israeli Science, Technology and Space Minister Yaakov Perry, a former security boss, told Army Radio.
Accusing Hamas of breaking the truce with rocket fire eight hours before it was to have expired, Israel recalled its negotiators from truce talks in Cairo on Tuesday. Palestinian negotiators walked out of the talks later, blaming Israel for their failure.
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