Jeruselam: Israel resumed a punishing air campaign against Gaza on Tuesday after its Islamist foe Hamas rejected a six-hour truce and fired dozens of rockets over the border, killing a first Israeli.
The renewed strikes killed two Gazans, raising the Palestinian death toll in eight days of violence to 194, medics said.
The Israeli was killed in a rocket attack on an Israeli position near the Erez crossing with Gaza, the army said. The 38-year-old civilian had been delivering food to soldiers serving in the area, a spokesman for the Israeli emergency services said.
It was the first Israeli death of the conflict after nearly 1,000 rockets had been fired into the Jewish state. Four Israelis have been seriously wounded. Early on Tuesday, Israel’s security cabinet said it would accept an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire but Hamas officials said they had not been consulted on the proposal and would not halt fire without a full-fledged deal including Israeli concessions.
The movement’s armed wing continued to fire dozens of rockets into Israel after the 6 pm deadline, sending tens of thousands scrambling for cover. The army said two rockets were intercepted over Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening. Overnight, Hamas’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades armed wing rejected the Egyptian proposal for a truce to be followed by talks.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the movement had not been consulted on the truce bid. “We didn’t get to see the Egyptian proposal except through the media,” he said. “The idea of halting fire before there is any agreement on the conditions laid out by the resistance is unacceptable and we reject it.”
Hamas has said it wants the end of Israel’s blockade of Gaza and the opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt as part of a truce deal. It also wants Israel to free Palestinians it re-arrested after releasing them in a 2011 exchange for an Israeli soldier.
