A Palestinian demonstrator runs through a cloud of tear gas during clashes against Israeli forces, outside Ofer, an Israeli military prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Thursday.(Photo: Abbas Momani, AFP/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM -- Israel offered to suspend its offensive in the Gaza
Strip on Friday during a brief visit by Egypt's premier there if
militants refrain from firing rockets at Israel, an official said, but
the Palestinians unleashed a fresh salvo.
An official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the Israeli leader was responding to an Egyptian request.
Gaza
militants stepped up their barrages of rocket fire into Israel as
Hesham Kandil crossed into Gaza before midday through the only border
post with Egypt, heavily guarded by Egyptian security personnel wearing
flak jackets and carrying assault rifles.
He was greeted by Gaza's
Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, who ventured out in public for
the first time since Israel launched the offensive Wednesday by
assassinating the militant group's military commander.
Israel
told the Egyptians the military "would hold its fire on the condition
that during that period, there won't be hostile fire from Gaza into
Israel," the Israeli official said. "Prime Minister Netanyahu is
committed to the peace treaty with Egypt, which is in the strategic
interest of both countries," he added, speaking on condition of
anonymity to discuss the diplomatic exchange.
There were no
immediate reports of Israeli retaliation for the latest salvo. Israeli
police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the militants were making a clear
statement. "There's no intention whatsoever to stop firing into Israel,"
he said.
Three days of fierce fighting between Israel and Gaza
militants has widened the instability gripping the region, straining
already frayed Israel-Egypt relations. The Cairo government recalled its
ambassador in protest.
Egypt said Kandil's three-hour visit
Friday was meant as a show of solidarity with the Palestinian
territory's militant Hamas rulers.
Egyptian intelligence officials
involved in negotiations to end previous rounds of fighting are
accompanying Kandil on his visit, an Egyptian diplomat said, suggesting
it was more than a display of support.
The diplomat said Gaza
militants have told Egyptian intelligence officials they would be
willing to hold their fire if Israel would commit to mediation to stop
its military operation and targeted killings.
Word of the possible
pause in the fighting came after a night of fierce exchanges and
signals that Israel might be preparing to invade Gaza. Overnight, the
military said it targeted about 150 of the sites Gaza gunmen use to fire
rockets at Israel, as well as ammunition warehouses, bringing to 450
the number of sites struck since the operation began Wednesday.
Israeli
troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers massed near the
Palestinian territory, signaling a ground invasion might be imminent.
Militants unleashed dozens of rocket barrages overnight.
Fighting between the two sides escalated sharply Thursday with a
first-ever rocket attack from Gaza on the Tel Aviv area, menacing
Israel's most densely populated area. No casualties were reported there,
but three people died in the country's rocket-scarred south when a
projectile slammed into an apartment building.
The death toll in Gaza was 19, including five children, according to Palestinian health officials.
Early
Friday, 85 missiles exploded within 45 minutes in Gaza City, sending
black pillars of smoke towering above the coastal strip's largest city.
The military said it was targeting underground rocket-launching sites.
One
missile flattened sections of the Interior Ministry, leaving a huge
pile of rubble, and another hit an uninhabited house belonging to a
senior Hamas commander. Those strikes, together with an attack on a
generator building near Haniyeh's home, signaled that Israel was
expanding its offensive beyond military targets.
Ten-month-old
Haneen Tafesh was killed Thursday when flying shrapnel from an air
attack on a field next to her family's shack struck her in the head.
"What
did she do? Did she fire any rockets?" asked her 23-year-old father,
Khaled Tafesh, as he waited outside the Shifa hospital morgue in Gaza
City, waiting for the funeral of his only child to begin.
Israel
and Hamas had largely observed an informal truce since Israel's
devastating incursion into Gaza four years ago, but rocket fire and
Israeli airstrikes on militant operations continued sporadically.
The
Israeli offensive has not deterred the militants from firing more than
400 rockets aimed at southern Israel, the military said. On Thursday,
they also unleashed for the first time the most powerful weapons in
their arsenal - Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets capable of reaching Tel
Aviv.
The two rockets that struck closest to Tel Aviv appear to
have landed in the Mediterranean Sea, defense officials said, and
another hit an open area on Tel Aviv's southern outskirts.
No
injuries were reported, but the rocket fire sowed panic in Tel Aviv and
made the prospect of a ground incursion more likely. The government
later approved the mobilization of up to 30,000 reservists for a
possible invasion.
Netanyahu said the army was hitting Hamas hard with what he called
surgical strikes, and warned of a "significant widening" of the Gaza
operation. Israel will "continue to take whatever action is necessary to
defend our people," said Netanyahu, who is up for re-election in
January.
At least 12 trucks were seen transporting tanks and
armored personnel carriers toward Gaza late Thursday, and buses carrying
soldiers headed toward the border area.
An Israeli ground
offensive could be costly to both sides. In the last Gaza war, Israel
devastated parts of the territory, setting back Hamas' fighting
capabilities but also paying the price of increasing diplomatic
isolation because of a civilian death toll numbering in the hundreds.
In
the current round of fighting, the civilian casualties have been
relatively low and the Israeli strikes seem to be more surgical.
In
other ways, the latest hostilities are reminiscent of the first days of
that three-week offensive against Hamas. Israel also caught Hamas off
guard then with a barrage of missile strikes and threatened to follow up
with a ground offensive.
Since then, Israel has improved its
missile defense systems, but it is facing a more heavily armed Hamas.
Israel estimates the militants have 12,000 rockets, including more
sophisticated weapons from Iran and from Libyan stockpiles plundered
after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's regime there last year.
Associated Press