Israeli strike in Gaza kills 11, hits office

Obama endorses right of nation to defend itself

Smoke rises after an Israeli strike in Gaza on Sunday. The Israeli military widened its range of targets in the Gaza Strip to include the media operations of the Palestinian territory’s Hamas rulers, sending its aircraft to attack two buildings used by both Hamas and foreign media outlets.
Smoke rises after an Israeli strike in Gaza on Sunday. The Israeli military widened its range of targets in the Gaza Strip to include the media operations of the Palestinian territory’s Hamas rulers, sending its aircraft to attack two buildings used by both Hamas and foreign media outlets.

— Israeli forces killed at least 11 people, including several children, in a single airstrike that destroyed a Gaza City home on Sunday, as Israel pressed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip for a fifth day, deploying warplanes and naval vessels to pummel the coastal enclave.

The airstrike, which the Israeli military said was meant to kill a Palestinian militant involved in the recent rocket attacks, was the deadliest operation so far in the recent clashes and would no doubt weigh on negotiations for a possible ceasefire. Among the dead were five women and four small children, a Palestinian health official said.

Two media offices were also hit on Sunday, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned of a “significant” expansion in the onslaught, which has already killed more than 50 people, many of them civilians.

Speaking on Sunday from Bangkok, President Barack Obama condemned missile attacks by Palestinian fighters in Gaza and said that Israel had a right to protect itself.

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“There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” Obama said in his first public comments since the violence broke out. “We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Obama blamed Palestinian militants for starting the round of fighting by raining rockets onto Israel.

The president also said that efforts were under way to address Israel’s security concerns and end the violence. “We’re going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours,” Obama said.

Even as the diplomacy intensified on Sunday, the attacks continued in Gaza and Israel.

Palestinian militants continued to barrage Israel with rockets, firing more than 100 on Sunday. At least 10 Israelis were wounded by shrapnel.

Netanyahu made his warning as militants in Gaza aimed at least one rocket at Tel Aviv, a day after Israeli forces broadened the attack beyond military targets, bombing centers of government infrastructure in Gaza, including the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister.

“We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations, and the Israel Defense Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation,” Netanyahu told his cabinet at its routine Sunday meeting, referring directly to the thousands of reservists who have been called up and the massing of armor on the Gaza border that many analysts have interpreted as preparation fora possible invasion.

His remarks were reported shortly after a battery of Israel’s Iron Dome defense shield, hastily deployed near Tel Aviv on Saturday in response to the threat of longer range rockets, intercepted at least one aimed at the city on Sunday, Israeli officials said. It was the latest of several salvos that have illustrated Hamas’ ability to extend the reach of its rocket attacks.

Since Wednesday, when the escalation of the conflict began, Iron Dome has knocked 245 rockets out of the sky, the military said Saturday, while 500 have struck Israel.

The U.S.-financed system is designed to intercept only rockets streaking toward towns and cities and to ignore those likely to strike open ground. But on Sunday, a rocket fired from Gaza plowed through the roof of an apartment building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. There were no immediate reports of casualties there.

In Gaza City, the crash of explosions pierced the quiet several times throughout the early morning.

In all, 73 Palestinians, including 37 civilians, have been killed in the five-day onslaught. Three Israeli civilians have also died from Palestinian rocket fire. One of the latest victims was a 52-year-old woman whose house in the eastern part of Gaza City was bombed around lunchtime.

A few hours earlier, a Hamas militant was killed and seven people were wounded in an attack on the Beach Refugee Camp, where Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, has a home. Those killed on Sunday included three children ages 1 to 5, the health officials said.

Frantic rescuers, bolstered by bulldozers, pulled the limp bodies of children from the ruins of a house as survivors and bystanders screamed in grief. Later, the bodies of the children were laid out in the morgue of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that “the Israeli people will pay the price” for the killing of civilians.

In Israel, three civilians have died and 63 have been injured. Four soldiers were wounded on Saturday.

The attacks continued despite talks in Cairo that President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt said Saturday night could soon result in a ceasefire. Netanyahu said he would consider a comprehensive cease-fire if the launchings from Gaza stopped.

Meanwhile, about 500 Egyptian activists have crossed into Gaza to deliver medical supplies and show support for Palestinians.

A delegation of Arab ministers plans to visit Gaza on Tuesday, Reuters reported, and Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, is expected in Cairo today.

But Mark Regev, a spokesman for Netanyahu, denied reports on Saturday that a truce was imminent.

Obama said Sunday that he had spoken several times with Netanyahu, Morsi and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in hopes of finding a way to address Israel’s security concerns without further ramping up military operations.

“We are actively working with all the parties in the region to see if we can end those missiles being fired without further escalation of violence in the region,” he said.

It was unclear whether the deal under discussion in Cairo would solely suspend the fighting or include other issues.

The conflict, meanwhile, showed no sign of abating.

Palestinian news agencies reported that two children were killed in a predawn strike on Sunday in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said it had “targeted dozens of underground launchers” overnight and also hit what it called a Hamas training base and command center. The Israeli Navy “targeted terror sites on the northern Gaza shore line,” the statement said, in repeated rounds of missiles.

Among the buildings that Israel hit overnight were two containing the offices of local news media outlets.

Seven journalists were injured in the first attack, about 1:40 a.m., in the Shawa and Hossari Building in downtown Gaza City.

One of the journalists injured on Sunday, Khader Zahar of the Beirut-based Al Quds satellite channel, was said to have lost a leg in the explosion, which hit its 11thfloor studio.

The Israeli military referred to the two sites as “Hamas operational communication sites that were identified by precise intelligence.”

Later, a missile that was dropped from an Apache helicopter hit the top of the 15-story Al Shoruq Building, which is also downtown, witnesses said.

The target was the Hamas channel that broadcasts locally, Al Aqsa, but the building also contains offices of other broadcasters.

No one was injured in that attack. Witnesses said that everyone in the building fled after a warning missile was fired in the stairwell, two minutes before the attack on the roof.

The Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem said it was “concerned” by the attacks, recalling a U.N. ruling that “journalists, media professionals and associated personnel engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered civilians, to be respected and protected as such.” Information for this article was contributed by Judi Rudoren, Fares Akram, Isabel Kershner, Carol Sutherland, Iritz Pazner Garshowitz, Tyler Hicks, Peter Baker, Alan Cowell, Michael Schwirtz, David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh of The New York Times; and by Ibrahim Barzak, Josef Federman, Sarah El Deeb, Jim Kuhnhenn, Anne Flaherty, Gregory Katz and Lauren E. Bohn of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/19/2012

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