http://www.euronews.com/
Mourners carry a coffin through the streets of Gaza of one of those
killed in a weekend of violence between Palestinians and Israelis.
The cross-border conflict, which flared up after an Israeli airstrike on Friday, is ongoing and the death toll is rising.
As
rockets continue to be fired into Israel, another four Palestinians
have died in an Israeli airstrike on Monday - two militants and two
civilians.
Earlier in the day, two Islamic Jihad members were killed in Khan Younis, and another young Palestinian died in Beit Lahiya.
Israeli
Defence Minister Ehud Barack said: "If attacks continue, we will
continue to respond. It takes patience and a standing power to overcome
these challenges, but we are determined to defend our civilian citizens
at any moment."
Two Israelis have been wounded and buildings
damaged as rockets hit the southern port city of Ashdod. There were also
rocket attacks on the neighbouring city of Beersheba.
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http://www.euronews.com/
The upsurge of violence around Gaza follows a familiar pattern:
militants fire rockets into Israel which brings air strikes, or vice
versa.
The death toll has pushed past two dozen on the Palestinian side, with many more wounded, most of them civilians.
The
Israeli military said its first air strike on Friday killed Zuheir
al-Qessi, who Palestinians said headed the Popular Resistance
Committees, armed activists from different factions. Israel named a
second militant leader killed as Mahmoud al-Hanani.
Israel released video purporting to be of what it calls preventive targeting to kill militants.
Nightfall brought separate Israeli air strikes against the coastal territory ruled by Hamas.
When
rockets were fired for a fourth day in a row on Monday, Israel said its
short-range air defence interception system called "Iron Dome" is
protecting its southern cities, downing rockets with a 75 percent
success rate.
With the storm of violence came a storm of funerals in Gaza.
Most of the dead are said to have been militants.
Gaza's Hamas rulers and Israel both seem to want to avoid the kind of all-out war that erupted three years ago.
But Hamas can not restrain smaller Gaza factions from attacking Israel.
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "My policy and instructions are
clear: we will strike anybody that plans to strike us, tries to strike
us or actually does hit us. The Israeli Army is dealing these terror
organisations very heavy blows."
Islamic Jihad, the faction behind most of the rocket fire, said there will be no ceasefire.
The
group said: "We will not take part in any calm with the enemy, who
impose their unfair rules. We will not allow a calm that disregards our
people's blood."
Calls by Hamas asking the rest of the Palestinian factions to stop their rocket fire have gone unheeded.
Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar in Cairo said he expects matters will calm down.
He
said: "Hamas has not taken any decision to escalate. It is trying to
reach a truce, conditioned on the Israeli enemy halting aggression."
Egyptian
efforts to broker a ceasefire appeared to be stuck over a demand by
Islamic Jihad that Israel first promise not to target militant leaders
for future attack.
