By Emmanuel Yashim
There have been renewed rocket alerts in Israel in the early hours of Tuesday, the Israeli army reported, with sirens sounding in communities along the border with the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli website which gives live rocket alert updates corroborated the army’s information.
Israel’s army has stepped up its operations against the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a troop visit to the sealed-off coastal strip that Israel would “intensify the fight in the coming days.”
Netanyahu spoke of a long battle, the end of which was not in sight.
Hamas, for its part, rejected a temporary ceasefire in the war and called for a permanent ceasefire.
It was reacting to an Arab media report according to which Egypt had drawn up a draft for a gradual end to the war.
Israel’s all-out assault on the Gaza Strip was triggered by the terrorist attack by Hamas and other extremist groups on Oct. 7 in Israel near the border with Gaza.
They killed more than 1200 people, mainly civilians.
Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground offensive in which, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority, more than 20,600 people have been killed and more than 54,500 injured so far.
Various UN bodies have in the past said that figures from the Gaza health authorities are credible. (dpa/NAN)
