Israelis fire into Lebanon after attack

Gaza’s death toll tops 100

Lebanese army experts in the southern Lebanese village of Al-Mari dismantle two rockets that were discovered ready to be fired into northern Israel.

Lebanese army experts in the southern Lebanese village of Al-Mari dismantle two rockets that were discovered ready to be fired into northern Israel.

Saturday, July 12, 2014

JERUSALEM -- The Palestinian death toll from Israel's air campaign in Gaza topped 100 Friday as rockets fired by militants reached deeper into Israel -- and, for the first time in the fighting, struck from neighboring Lebanon.

Gaza militants already have fired more than 550 rockets against Israel in the offensive. The Israeli military said it has hit more than 1,100 targets, mostly what it identified as rocket-launching sites.

Brushing aside criticism of Israel's four-day aerial campaign, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that he felt no international pressure to quit the operation and that he would not rule out a ground invasion to stop the barrages of rockets from Palestinian militants.

"We are weighing all possibilities and preparing for all possibilities," Netanyahu said at a news conference in Tel Aviv.

"No international pressure will prevent us from striking the terrorists who are attacking us," he said.

Gaza health officials said strikes overnight Thursday killed eight people, raising the death toll to at least 98. A later strike pushed the tally to more than 100 with about 670 wounded, officials said.

In the southern Gaza city of Rafah, residents sifted the remains of a four-story building and scattered for cover as another airstrike hit nearby.

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AP

Israelis take shelter Friday in Tel Aviv as sirens sound during a Palestinian rocket attack.

Rocket fire continued from Gaza toward locations in southern and central Israel, including toward Israel's international airport. The commercial center of Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion airport also heard warning sirens Friday, but the rockets were intercepted and there was no disturbance to Israel's air traffic. Hamas militants said they intend to fire rockets at the airport and warned foreign airlines to stop flying to Israel.

"So far Hamas has utilized only a little of what it has prepared for the Zionist enemy," the group's military wing said in a statement on its website, adding that it would continue "to surprise" every day.

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AP

Palestinian firefighters pass a boat destroyed by an Israeli missile strike Friday in Gaza City.

"We have prepared ourselves for a very long battle," it said, "not for a week or 10 days, as some have said, but for many long weeks."

Gaza rocket fire struck a gas station in southern Israel, seriously wounding one person and sending large plumes of smoke into the air.

In northern Israel, rocket fire struck near the Lebanese border, and the military responded with artillery fire toward the source in southern Lebanon, military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said.

The Lebanese military said militants there fired three rockets toward Israel about 6 a.m. local time and that the Israelis retaliated by firing about 25 artillery shells on the area.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said one of the militants firing the rockets was wounded and taken to a hospital. The Lebanese military said troops found two rocket launchers and dismantled them.

Southern Lebanon is a stronghold of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has battled Israel numerous times. However, recent fire from Lebanon has been blamed on radical Palestinian factions in the area, and Hezbollah has not been involved in the ongoing offensive.

Two Lebanon-based, al-Qaida-linked groups, the Battalions of Ziad Jarrah and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, have claimed responsibility in the past for similar rocket attacks on Israel.

Israel launched the Gaza offensive to stop rocket fire that broke out after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank and a Palestinian teenager was abducted and burned to death in an apparent reprisal attack.

The World Health Organization has issued an emergency appeal for funds, saying the hostilities have exacerbated an already stressed Palestinian health system, particularly in isolated Gaza.

"The recent escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip raises concern about the ability of the government and the Ministry of Health of the occupied Palestinian territory to cope with the increased burden of medical emergencies on the health system, given the high levels of shortages of medicines, medical disposables and hospital fuel supplies, and rising health care debt," the organization's Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean said in a statement.

The statement said the organization and the Palestinian Ministry of Health were "calling on local and international donors to support the ministry in coping with the current, difficult situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, especially in the Gaza Strip, that is affecting the health and welfare of Palestinians."

Lerner said the military was doing its utmost to prevent civilian casualties, calling inhabitants ahead of time to warn of imminent attacks. He said Israeli forces also fire "nonexplosive munitions" at roofs as a warning and looks for people to leave before destroying a structure.

Lerner blamed Hamas for causing death of innocent bystanders by firing from heavily populated areas.

"When Hamas embeds itself in the civilian population and uses it as a human shield, that makes it very difficult for us," he said.

Israel's military "uses its weapons to defend its civilians. Hamas uses its civilians to defend its weapons," he said.

Military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said Hamas was "sinking into its own disaster," while Israel was deploying its military might "not without reasoning, not without thinking, not without taking into account there are civilians in Gaza."

A decision to launch a ground assault against Hamas would likely involve a rise in Palestinian civilian casualties and put Israeli troops at risk. Israel has mobilized more than 30,000 reservists to supplement the potential ground operation.

During a ground incursion in early 2009, hundreds of civilians were killed and both sides drew war crimes accusations in a United Nations report.

Middle East envoy Tony Blair said efforts were being made to try to reach a truce.

"We are in a critical point," he said. "I think we have got to do everything we can to ... create a situation in which the people in Gaza and the West Bank and in Israel feel that this is not then going to recur and there is some genuine plan in place."

Nations Weigh In

The response to the offensive abroad has been mixed. Turkey's president on Friday called on Israel to halt the offensive, while the prime minister said there can be no normalizing of Turkish-Israeli ties as long as Israel's actions continue.

"I would like to remind Israel that [a ground operation] would lead to dangerous developments and sow the seeds of hatred," President Abdullah Gul said.

"Such an escalation could lead to chaos in our region," he said.

Turkey and Israel have been working toward improving ties that were soured after Israeli commandos stormed a pro-Palestinian aid ship in 2010, killing eight Turks and one Turkish-American.

But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that ties can't be restored under current conditions.

"We cannot look positively at a process of normalization while bombs are raining on our [Palestinian] brothers," Erdogan said. "We cannot be on the side of the oppressor."

In Europe, thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators turned out on the streets of London and Paris on Friday to call for an end to the Israeli airstrikes.

Several thousand people crowded the streets outside the Israeli Embassy in west London. The crowds blocked a road and several protesters managed to climb on top of a double-decker bus stuck in traffic, but police said the protest was largely peaceful.

A smaller protest took place in Paris on Friday, where about 100 people demonstrated near the French Foreign Ministry.

Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags. One woman who shouted "Palestine will survive" had the flag painted on her cheeks.

Stephane Frappreau, who identified himself as Jewish, said the demonstrations were about "defending humanity and about stopping the massacre."

"I think that people tend to forget that Palestinians are people who are suffering, kids and women, who are dying every day," Frappreau said. "And I think that people shouldn't confuse things or come to quick conclusions, because being against Israel as we are today is not about being anti-Semitic."

France has both western Europe's largest Jewish community and its largest Muslim population, and the French government has been walking a fine line on the Gaza developments.

President Francois Hollande issued a statement earlier this week in support of Israel that prompted criticism because it failed to mention Palestinian victims.

Hollande later spoke with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, then issued new statements expressing support for each and concern for all victims.

In London, a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said he supported Israel in the face of attacks by Hamas against Israeli civilians.

In a further show of support for the Israeli campaign, the U.S. House on Friday backed a nonbinding resolution expressing support for Israel and its right to self-defense.

The measure, approved by voice vote, condemns Hamas for unprovoked rocket attacks on Israel. The bipartisan resolution was sponsored by Reps. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., and Tom Cole, R-Okla.

The measure includes a provision by Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., highlighting Iran's role in supporting Hamas.

Information for this article was contributed by Aron Heller, Bassem Mroue, Najib Jobain and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Isabel Kershner, Fares Akram and Rick Gladstone of The New York Times.

A Section on 07/12/2014