Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that it was ‘clear that this is not the end of the campaign,’ hours after a ceasefire to end a surge of deadly violence in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel took hold on Monday.
Energy Minister and Security Cabinet member Yuval Steinitz told Army Radio on Monday morning that ‘to get rid of Hamas, we have to conquer Gaza.’
A ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza terror groups went into effect at 4:30 a.m. Monday, ending two days of intense fighting that saw more than 600 rockets fired at Israel and four Israeli civilians killed, according to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups.
A rocket fired from Gaza killed an Israeli civilian on Sunday after a house in Ashkelon suffered a direct hit. The 58-year-old father of four is the first civilian casualty since 2014 Operation Protective Edge. Since Saturday, Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants fired more than 400 rockets at Israeli communities, the military said.
Over 90 rockets were launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip Saturday morning and Israel responded with strikes as a fragile ceasefire along the border again faltered.
Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip launched at least two rockets into southern Israel early Thursday, the military said. The projectiles fell in an open area, and no injuries were reported.
An architect of a still-secret U.S. plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took to Twitter again on Wednesday to disclose another element that it would not contain – a confederation with neighboring Jordan.
A new public opinion survey showed the overwhelming majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are disillusioned with their leaders and desperate for presidential elections.
Israel has not ruled out the option of reoccupying Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday morning in an interview with KAN news.
Israeli defense officials on Monday warned that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad appeared to be planning to conduct a large-scale terror attack on the Gaza border in order to derail ongoing cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, according to two Hebrew media reports.
The Trump Administration will allow Israel to annex portions of the West Bank and split the Gaza Strip from the West Bank so that it can be a state of its own, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday.
Militants fired five rockets from Gaza into Israel early Sunday, the Israeli military said, following a day of Palestinian mass protests along the Israel-Gaza perimeter fence. Despite the rocket fire, the Kerem Shalom and Erez border crossings – which have been closed since last Monday when a Gaza rocket destroyed a house in central Israel – were reopened on Sunday morning.
Israel prepared for a broad military campaign in Gaza Thursday, as Egypt worked behind the scenes to ensure that Palestinians marking the one year anniversary of the Great March of Return this weekend do not spark a new IDF-Hamas war.
As the Israeli military continued its preparations for a possible outbreak of violence at protests along the Gaza border planned for Saturday, an Egyptian delegation reportedly told Hamas that any mistake it makes could lead to war.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and Hamas, which resumed late Tuesday evening, continued into early Wednesday, with Israeli military striking several Hamas military positions in Gaza, while air-raid sirens sounded in southern Israeli communities.
The Israeli military began bombing targets throughout the Gaza Strip on Monday evening, some 12 hours after a rocket fired from the coastal enclave slammed into a home in central Israel, injuring seven people.
Israel has deployed two infantry and armored divisions to southern Israel and has begun a limited call up for reservists in the intelligence and air defense corps following rocket fire on central Israel Monday morning, the IDF said.
A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck a residential building in central Israel early Monday morning, injuring at least seven people, including two infants, and leveling the structure, officials said.
An Israeli tank struck a Hamas military post in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, hours after an airborne explosive device apparently launched from the Palestinian enclave exploded in Israel.
Hamas is facing the biggest demonstrations yet against its 12-year rule of the Gaza Strip, with hundreds of Palestinians taking to the streets in recent days to protest the dire living conditions in the blockaded territory.