Israel rejected international pressure on Wednesday to call a halt to its massive airstrikes on Gaza and continued to target Hamas strongholds.
JERUSALEM: Israel rejected international pressure on Wednesday to call a halt to its massive airstrikes on Gaza and continued to target Hamas strongholds, claiming to have dealt a "severe blow" to the Islamist faction, as the toll rose to 390 dead and over 1600 wounded.
Hamas retaliated by sending a barrage of 35 rockets deep inside Israel, reaching the city of Beersheva, thus raising the prospects of a devastating ground strike by Tel Aviv that has already amassed troops and tanks on its border with Gaza.
The Grad rockets fired by Hamas militants from Gaza Strip reached 37 kilometres inside Israel wounding two people.
The Israeli cabinet huddled for hours in Tel Aviv to consider international proposals for a truce, but a top government official said after the meeting that Israel would not agree to a French proposal for a 48-hour lull to allow humanitarian aid for the 1.5 million people of the impoverished territory.
Two people were wounded when a rocket slammed into the northern Negev city of Ashkelon this morning while another rocket exploded in the heart of a residential neighbourhood in the city, leaving a number of people under shock.
Israel's Home Front Command issued a ban on all public gatherings in the city and schools in 40 kms radius around the Gaza Strip have been closed in view of escalation in violence.
The Israel Air Force (IAF) meanwhile continued targeting Hamas'installations in the Gaza Stripstriking its deposed Premier Ismail Haniyeh's office, which the army dubbed "a centre for planning, support and financing of terrorist activities against Israel".
Also under attack from Israeli warplanes were the interior ministry, rocket launchers and other government buildings of the Hamas-led rule in the coastal territory.
The IAF attacked 35 additional targets overnight, including tunnels in the Rafah border area, weapon storage facilities, Hamas outposts and an armed rocket launcher, IDF said.
Israeli Navy forces also attacked a number of targets in the Gaza Strip, including Hamas outposts, training camps, guarding vessels used by Hamas naval forces and launching posts used to fire rockets, it added.
"The IAF will continue its mission, attack the infrastructure and buildings that Hamas is usingand will operate against terrorist organisations and anyone who provides support to terrorism," the army said in a statement.
Besides rejecting the proposal for truce for being "unrealistic," the Israeli cabinet is also mulling expanding the ongoing operation and defence minister Ehud Barak has asked for its approval to call 2,510 more reservists in addition to some 6,700 already on duty.
"That (French) proposal contained no guarantees of any kind that Hamas will stop the rockets and smuggling," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said adding,"It is not realistic to expect Israel to cease fire unilaterally with no mechanism to enforce the cessation of shooting and terror from Hamas."
However, the foreign ministry spokesman also did not outrightly reject the proposal calling it one of several under consideration.
Israel's internal security agency (Shin Bet) head, Yuval Diskin, today said thatHamas has beendealt a "serious blow" by the repeated strikes in the Gaza Strip since Saturday.
"Hamas has been attacked as it has never been attacked before.. It has suffered serious damage and its governability in Gaza has been severely impaired," Diskin told ministers at a meeting of the security cabinet.
The Shin Bet head added that many of the Islamic factions senior activists were hiding out in mosques and hospitals in Gaza, some of them in the guise of doctors and male nurses.
"Some of them have turned dozens of mosques into command and control centres on the assumption that Israel won't attack those places," he said.
"Their development laboratories have been completely destroyed. Their tunnel system has sustained heavy damage. Hamas is trying to utilise (what remains) so that their operatives can escape to Egypt," Diskin added.
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