Israel launched
more air strikes on Gaza on Sunday after taking its
military campaign to a new level by flattening a 13-
storey apartment tower following a warning to
residents to evacuate.
Palestinian militants kept up their cross-border
rocket fire in what has become a conflict of attrition
that has defied attempts by regional power Egypt to
broker a durable truce in fighting now in its seventh
week.
An Israeli air strike killed two people on a
motorcycle in Gaza, medical officials said, hours
after a bombing attack brought Al Zafer Tower in
Gaza City crashing to the ground.
It was the first time Israel had destroyed so large a
structure in the Gaza war. It launched the attack a
day after a mortar bomb killed a four-year-old
Israeli boy, and Israel's president attended his
funeral on Sunday near the Gaza border.
The Israeli military said the building contained a
command centre belonging to Hamas militants, and
that it had fired a non-explosive warning rocket on
Saturday, 10 minutes before attacking.
Local residents said the high-rise housed 44
families. Medical officials said 17 people were
wounded in the Israeli strike.
Egypt called on Israel and the Palestinians on
Saturday to halt hostilities and return to talks. But
there was no sign that negotiations, last held before
a ceasefire collapsed on Tuesday, would resume
any time soon.
Israel also faced rocket fire from the north on
Saturday.
Two missiles launched from Lebanon struck
Israel's Galilee. Lebanese and Israeli sources said it
was not initially clear who was behind the attack,
which caused no casualties or damage.
At least five rockets fired from Syria landed at
various locations on the Israeli-occupied Golan
Heights, the Israeli army said. All fell in open areas.
It was also not immediately known who launched
them.
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Late on Saturday, an Israeli air strike destroyed a
commercial centre in the southern Gaza town of
Rafah and three people were hurt, local medical
staff said.
Palestinian health officials say 2,085 people, most
of them civilians and more than 400 of them
children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since
July 8, when Israel launched an offensive with the
declared aim of ending Palestinian rocket fire into
its territory.
Sixty-four Israeli soldiers and four civilians in Israel
have been killed.
Hamas has said it will not stop fighting until the
Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza is lifted. Both
Israel and Egypt view Hamas as a security threat
and are reluctant to make sweeping concessions
without guarantees weapons will not enter the
economically crippled enclave.
The Cairo talks had aimed to secure a lasting deal
to open the way for reconstruction aid to flow into
the Gaza territory of 1.8 million people, where
thousands of homes have been destroyed.
The United Nations says about 400,000 Gazans
have been displaced in the longest and deadliest
violence between Israel and the Palestinians since
the second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, a
decade ago.
Culled: (Reuters)
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