Gaza and Israel have been plunged back into a state of war after almost a week of truce after Palestinian fighters launched rockets into Israel and Israel attacked “terror sites” inside the enclave.
The Israeli military launched attacks on at least 10 sites in Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least three people, and recalled its team working on a permanent ceasefire with Palestinians after three rockets landed in Israel.
“In response to Hamas’s violation of the truce, the prime minister and defence minister have ordered the IDF [Israeli army] to once more attack terror sites in the Gaza Strip,” a government official said.
The Gaza health ministry reported that a young child and a woman were killed and 16 injured in air raid in Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City. An attack on the airport area near Rafah had injured two children.
The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, later said on Twitter that it had fired rockets towards Tel Aviv – confirmation that Hamas was involved in the latest violence. No one was injured in the attack on Tel Aviv, the Israeli army said.
The violence apparently spells the end of efforts in Cairo to secure a permanent ceasefire to end the war in Gaza, in which more than 2,000 people have died. Most of the dead were Gazan civilians.
The Palestinian rocket fire broke a temporary truce valid until midnight local time (9pm GMT on Tuesday). [AlJazeera]
