Israeli forces on Saturday pounded dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip and dropped leaflets warning of an escalation in attacks, as southern Israel came under more Palestinian rocket fire.
As Week Three of the Gaza conflict begins, neither Israel nor Hamas has what it wants yet and, despite the misery, neither side is ready to quit. Meanwhile, Egypt hosted talks aimed at ending the violence.
Not only has Israel rejected the United Nations' call for a cease-fire, its answer was one of the most intense bombardments of the campaign. Israeli artillery units opened up with a vengeance, while troops edged closer to Gaza City on Saturday.
Southern Israel came under renewed rocket fire.
Hamas also announced today that it was rejecting the deployment of international observers in the Gaza Strip, as called for in the latest U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolution.
The militant group said the resolution fell short of meeting the "national interests."
In the day's bloodiest incident, an Israeli tank shell landed outside a home in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, killing nine people as they sat outside in their garden. Separately, a woman was killed by an Israeli airstrike in the southern town of Rafah.
The Israeli military said more than 15 militants were killed in heavy fighting Saturday with its ground forces inside Gaza. Its aircraft attacked more than 40 targets throughout Gaza, striking 10 rocket-launching sites, weapons-storage facilities, smuggling tunnels, an anti-aircraft missile launcher and gunmen. Flames and smoke could be seen rising into the sky over Gaza City.
Israel has come under international criticism for the rising number of civilians killed in the fighting. Paramedics said the nine casualties were from the same clan and included two children and two women.
"Residents brought them to the hospital in a civilian car, they put them all in the trunk because their bodies were mangled," said hospital administrator Adham Hakim. "We identified them a little after separating their bodies in the morgue."
The Israeli army had no immediate comment, but has repeatedly accused Hamas militants of using residential areas for cover. Earlier this week, an Israeli attack outside a U.N. school killed nearly 40 people. Both Israel and Palestinian witnesses said militants carried out an attack from the area moments earlier.
Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 to halt years of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel. A week later, ground troops moved in, with artillery and tank fire that has contributed to a surge in civilian casualties.
Palestinian medical officials say more than 800 Palestinians have been killed, roughly half of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis have been killed - four of them by militant rockets, the rest in battle in Gaza. Five soldiers were lightly wounded in Saturday's fighting.
Both Israel and Hamas have ignored a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire that would lead to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Israel says it will not stop firing until Hamas, the militant groups which controls Gaza, stops firing rockets back.
But the Hamas rockets (albeit fewer of them) continue to fly. Neither side will admit defeat, and neither side has the conditions to claim victory.
"Is it really logical to expect Israel to hold both hands behind our back and do nothing?" said Israeli spokesman Mark Regev. "We will act to protect our people."
Gaza is full of stories, impossible to confirm, of families being herded into houses and then shot at. The Israelis vehemently deny these accounts, but they contribute to the growing bitterness and hatred which fuels this conflict, and which all but drowns out the attempts at finding a diplomatic solution.
Israel dismissed the Security Council resolution passed Thursday as impractical, while Hamas (whose government in Gaza is not recognized internationally) is angry it was not consulted about the diplomatic efforts.
"Both have responded to the resolution in the same way, in total disrespect," Riad Malki said at U.N. headquarters in New York. He said the Security Council should enforce its resolution, perhaps by levying sanctions.
Phillips notes one bit of good news (if you can call it that): The U.N. says it will resume its humanitarian aid deliveries in Gaza; it had suspended them after one of its drivers was killed by Israeli tank fire. Israel admits that was a mistake which it deeply regrets, and the U.N. says it now has assurances its people will be safe - or as safe as they can be in a war zone.
Syria-based Palestinian militant groups including Hamas on Saturday rejected deploying international observers or troops in Gaza.
A statement issued by the groups after a meeting attended by Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal also rejected any security arrangement that "infringes on the right of resistance against Israeli occupation."
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