Israel kills seven in new strikes on Gaza
Middle East Desk Report

GAZA CITY (Gaza Strip)—Israeli ground forces backed by warplanes exchanged fire with Hamas gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing a teacher and six militants in escalating violence that is hobbling peace efforts. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak vowed harsher military action should Gaza militants persist with their rocket fire at southern Israel.
“If the Qassam (rocket) fire continues, we will intensify our activity, and the other side’s losses, until we resolve the Qassam rocket problem,” he said. The surge in violence began Monday with a Hamas suicide bombing in southern Israel and heated up with Israeli air and ground attacks on Gaza and militant rocket barrages. A 73-year-old Israeli woman was killed in the suicide bombing, and 16 Palestinians, all but one of them militants, have died in the Israeli attacks.
The 38-year-old Palestinian teacher was killed Thursday when an Israeli surface-to-surface missile struck an agricultural school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, Hamas security forces said. Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Gaza Health Ministry said the man was killed outside the school gate. The Israeli military said it opened fire in the area at a group of rocket launchers. It denied firing at a school.
The fighting erupted earlier in the day after Israeli tanks drove several hundred yards into northern Gaza. Hamas militants and Israel troops traded automatic fire, as Israeli aircraft fired missiles and Hamas lobbed mortar shells. Five Hamas men were killed, three by missiles and two by gunfire, said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ military wing. The Islamic Jihad faction said one of its militants also died in the clash.
Seven rockets were fired at southern Israel on Thursday morning, the military said. One landed in the yard of a home in the rocket-scarred town of Sderot, slightly wounding one person, it said. The spike in fighting has threatened to overwhelm peacemaking efforts. It is unlikely that Hamas’ rival, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, could press ahead with serious peace talks with Israel during intense conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas, which rules Gaza after expelling forces loyal to Abbas last June, is not a party to peace talks renewed at a U.S.-sponsored conference in November. Heavy Palestinian casualties could put pressure on Abbas to halt peace talks. While hoping to reach a peace deal with Abbas this year, Israel has said it will not carry out any agreement until he regains control of Gaza.
Israel, meanwhile, planned to keep up its economic pressure on Gaza. On Thursday, the Defense Ministry ordered the reduction of electricity to the Gaza Strip, a small but symbolic cut in supply meant to deter militant rocket fire, according to security officials.
The Defense Ministry sent a letter to the National Infrastructures Ministry instructing it to go ahead with a series of gradual cutbacks, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the letter had not been publicized. It was not immediately clear when the reductions would start going into effect. “The combination of military action on the one hand and sanctions on Gaza on the other ... will eventually bring the Qassam fire to a halt,” Barak said at the military base.
Israeli raids on Gaza killed six Palestinian fighters and a teacher on Thursday as the army pressed on with an assault on the Hamas-run territory following a suicide bombing in Israel this week. Escalating violence in and around Gaza has now seen 19 Palestinians, mostly militants, killed in Israeli strikes and several Israelis, including two young children, wounded by militant rocket attacks during the past week. In one air strike on Thursday, four militants — three from the armed wing of Hamas and a fourth from Islamic Jihad — were killed near Jabaliya in the north of the territory by a missile fired from a drone. A second air raid saw two militants killed near Tuffah north of Gaza City, while four others were wounded, two of them seriously, medics said.
Hamas said Israeli ground forces were also operating in the area, while an Israeli military spokesman said only that “an army operation is underway.”