[In
Cairo, Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi, whose
prime minister visited Gaza on Friday, held meetings with Turkey’s prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the emir of Qatar, both Hamas supporters,
to discuss what Morsi and other regional leaders have promised would be a more
robust response to Israel’s actions than during past conflicts. By Saturday
night, rumors of Morsi, Erdogan and Hamas chairman Khaled Meshaal hashing out a
cease-fire plan were swirling but unconfirmed. ]
JERUSALEM
— Israel’s four-day-old air offensive in the Gaza Strip expanded to target
Hamas government buildings on Saturday, and Palestinian militants continued
firing a torrent of rockets at civilian areas in southern Israel, as both sides
stepped up diplomatic efforts to win support.
Israeli
airstrikes over Gaza accelerated to nearly 200 early in the day, including one
hit that reduced the offices of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to a
smoldering concrete heap. That strike, along with others on a police
headquarters and smuggling tunnels along the strip’s southern border with
Egypt, raised questions about whether Israel had broadened its mission to
including toppling the Hamas government that rules the coastal strip.
Just
before sundown, Hamas said it had shot an Iranian-made Fajr-5 rocket at Tel
Aviv, and air raid sirens sounded in that city for the third day in a row. The
Israeli military said its newly deployed missile defense battery intercepted
the rocket before it landed in the populous coastal city.
Even
as airstrikes pounded Saturday morning, the foreign minister of Tunisia’s
Islamist-led government, Rafik Abdessalem, arrived in Gaza with a delegation,
underscoring Hamas’s newfound credibility in a region dramatically altered by
the Arab Spring. Abdessalem expressed outrage at what he called Israeli
“aggression” and pledged to unite with other Arab countries to end the
conflict.
In
Cairo, Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi, whose
prime minister visited Gaza on Friday, held meetings with Turkey’s prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the emir of Qatar, both Hamas supporters,
to discuss what Morsi and other regional leaders have promised would be a more
robust response to Israel’s actions than during past conflicts. By Saturday
night, rumors of Morsi, Erdogan and Hamas chairman Khaled Meshaal hashing out a
cease-fire plan were swirling but unconfirmed.
Also
in Cairo, the Arab League held
an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers to discuss an Arab response to
the conflict. Many participants called for Arab assistance to the Palestinians
and a “reconsideration” of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. But it was unclear
if the usually toothless league would deliver decisive action by the end of its
summit.
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, took his country’s case to
European leaders. In conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the
prime ministers of Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic, Netanyahu argued that
“no country in the world would agree to a situation in which its population
lives under a constant missile threat,” according to a government statement.
The Israeli government announced that it was launching a special operations
center for public diplomacy, centered on “the unified message that Israel is
under fire.”
The
White House reiterated its support for the Israeli operation, which the
military says is intended to stop rocket fire that has escalated in the four
years since Israel last invaded Gaza to stunt attacks by Hamas, an Islamist
movement that Israel and the United States consider a terrorist group.
“Israelis
have endured far too much of a threat from these rockets for far too long,” Ben
Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters traveling with
President Obama to Asia. Rhodes declined to comment on the Israelis’ choice of
targets, but he said White House officials “always underscore the importance of
avoiding civilian casualties.”
The
death toll in Gaza rose to 45 by Saturday evening, health ministry officials
said. Three Israelis have been killed by rocket
fire from Gaza since the operation began. An Israeli military spokesman
said about 130 rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel on Saturday, 30 of which
were intercepted by a missile-defense system known as Iron Dome.
Israel
made preparations this week for a
possible ground invasion, but there were no further signs of one coming on
Saturday.
No
shift in mission
The
Israeli airstrikes, which continued to target rocket launching sites and
weapons depots, slowed throughout the day, even as Israel appeared to be
channeling new efforts toward Hamas civilian institutions. Capt. Eytan Buchman,
an Israeli military spokesman, said the strikes were “part of our overarching
goal of toppling Hamas’s command and control capabilities” and did not mark a
shift in mission.
Haniyeh,
the Hamas prime minister, was apparently not at his office when it was hit.
According
to the newspaper Haaretz, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai said the “goal
of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages.”
That
is how it felt to Hossam and Sanaa al-Dadah, two teachers who had the
misfortune of living next door to house the Israeli military said belonged to a
Hamas commander. At 6 a.m., the family’s windows shattered and their walls
burst open. The commander’s adjacent house, in the Jabaliya refugee camp, had
been demolished in an massive airstrike, and suddenly theirs was ruined, too.
In
the terrifying moments that followed, Hossam al-Dadah, 50, frantically dug his
five children out of the rubble, and a few hours later, they had been taken
away to their grandparents’ home. But a dust-caked Sanaa al-Dadah, 40, rushed
from room to room, crying and gathering her five children’s clothing, school
bags and dolls and placing them on a sheet.
Israel
says Hamas operates in populated areas to use civilians as human shields, and
it has dropped thousands of leaflets over Gaza warning civilians to stay away
from Hamas operatives. Sanaa al-Dadah said she never got the message.
“Where
are we going to go?” she said again and again. “The Israelis are responsible.
They are the enemy of God. What did we do? Did we carry any missiles? Did we
launch any rockets?”
Outside
the house, children played insouciantly in rubble and scorched cars. Rami
Mukayed, a 12-year-old in gray trousers, said he reserved his fear for
darkness.
“At
night, come see me, I’m panicked,” he said. “I play in the morning. I hide in
the evening.”
Affect
on peace process
In
a speech in Cairo, Erdogan said the Gaza conflict called for a new era of
Egyptian-Turkish cooperation.
“If
Turkey and Egypt unite, everybody will be singing of peace in the region. And
if we stick together, the region will no longer be dominated by crying and
weeping,” he said.
Speakers
at the Arab League meeting made the same argument.
“We
can no longer accept empty meetings and meaningless resolutions,” said Arab
League Chief Nabil Elaraby, addressing the assembly at the start of the
meeting. He urged Arab states to adopt a “strict stance” on the conflict.
Issandr
El Amrani, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who
heads a blog called the Arabist, said the Gaza standoff has presented the new
Arab Spring governments and other regional heavyweights an opportunity to
reconsider their position on Israel and the peace process, in a series of talks
that could have long-term regional implications.
For
years, the Arab League has floated a proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian peace
deal that Israel never took seriously, El Amrani said. Arab states might now
choose to drop that proposal and adopt more aggressive approaches — Egypt could
revise the terms of its peace treaty with Israel; Arab states might consider
providing covert aid to Hamas; others will amplify the pressure on Israel
through diplomatic corridors, he said.
Yet
by Saturday night, despite mounting rhetorical and symbolic support to Gaza’s
Hamas leadership, the Arab ministers’ meeting announced plans to send a
delegation to Gaza, but stopped short of pledging immediate material support to
Hamas.
“I’ve
seen a lot of talk about doing something, and how there’s a collective Arab
responsibility to act, but no one has suggested anything concrete,” El Amrani
said.
Reyham
Abdul-Karim and Islam Abdul-Karim in Gaza City and Ernesto Londono in Tel Aviv
contributed to this report.
