1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
Israel and the crisis in the Middle EastGerman coalition collapseUS election

Israel resumes Gaza strikes

August 8, 2014

Israel says it has resumed military strikes in Gaza after a series of rockets were fired into its territory. The developments follow the expiry of a truce, to which Hamas has not announced an extension.

https://p.dw.com/p/1CrD5
Smoke rises in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli strike August 8, 2014. The Israeli military responded with air strikes at "terror sites" across the Gaza Strip on Friday after militants launched rockets from the enclave, an Israeli military spokesman said. Islamist militants resumed rocket fire from the coastal enclave into Israel as a 72-hour ceasefire expired at 8 a.m. (0600 London time) on Friday. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Image: Reuters

The Israeli government said on Friday morning it had ordered the resumption of airstrikes targeting militant groups aross the Gaza Strip, after rockets continued to be fired into its territory.

A child was the first fatality from the latest Israeli action, according to a Gaza hospital.

A ceasefire expired at 8 a.m. local time (0500 UTC), with no official statement from Hamas about whether they would extend the truce. Israel, which had said it was willing to prolong the truce indefinitely, later said it would respond decisively to the rocket fire.

"The Israeli prime minister and defence minister have ordered the IDF (Israel defence forces) to retaliate forcefully to the Hamas breach of the ceasefire," an official said in a statement.

Within half-an-hour of the deadline expiring, the IDF said that five rockets had been fired into its territory, with one intercepted above the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. The other missiles were said to have fallen in open territory nearby. By mid-morning, about 18 rockets were said to have been fired.

The AP news agency reported one senior Hamas official as saying that Israel had rejected the group's demands. A leader of the smaller Islamic Jihad grouping said that factions within Gaza had decided to end the ceasefire. The Reuters news agency did, however, report one Hamas official as saying the group had yet to decide.

Egypt talks flounder

Egyptian officials have been brokering indirect talks between the Israelis and Palestinians with the aim of reaching a long-term ceasefire.

But a spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, Ezzedine al-Qassam Bridgades, warned hours before the expiration of the ceasefire that fighting would continue if their demands, chief of which is ending Israel's blockade of Gaza, were not met.

It also envisages a program of rebuilding in the war-damaged strip of land, as well as the opening of a commercial port. Since the Israeli offensive began a month ago, the Palestinian Health Ministry claims at least 1,886 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 9,800 injured. On the Israeli side, 64 soldiers and three civilians have died.

rc/av/nm (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)