Israel Launches Fresh Attacks in Seventh Day of Fighting, as Israel bombed a mosque and the homes of at least half a dozen Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip on Friday and allowed foreign passport holders to leave the ravaged territory, as speculation rose that a ground assault could be imminent.
A day after an airstrike killed a senior Hamas leader — the first from the militant group known to have died during the Israeli assault — Hamas continued to launch rockets into Israel, with several missiles landing in the southern city of Ashkelon. No deaths or serious injuries were reported.
Most of the homes of Hamas operatives targeted Friday were apparently empty, though wire services reported that one man was killed in the strikes. On Thursday, cleric Nizar Rayyan, who served as a liaison between Hamas’s political and military wings, was killed, along with several members of his family, when an Israeli bomb obliterated a house in the densely packed Jabalya refugee camp north of Gaza City. By late Thursday, the Palestinian death toll was 412, according to health officials in the strip.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which began last Saturday, has been carried out exclusively by air and by sea.
Source: Washington Post
Filed under: MidEast, Gaza strip, Israel, Middle East, The Terror Journal
