TEL AVIV // Israel yesterday killed four militants in the Gaza Strip in a third day of air raids in which at least 18 Palestinians have died in retaliation against an attack on an Israeli school bus on Thursday.
Gaza militants have reacted by firing at least 70 rockets and mortars at southern Israeli communities since Thursday, as the clashes with Israel escalated to their worst level since Israel's three-week assault in the enclave ended in January 2009.
The latest round of violence was triggered by the firing of a guided anti-tank missile on an Israeli school bus near the Gaza-Israel border on Thursday. The attack seriously wounded a 16-year-old boy and injured the bus driver.
Hamas, which is viewed by both Israel and the US as a terrorist organisation, claimed responsibility for the bus attack. Yesterday, however, spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the group did not intend to target children. "It was not known that the bus targeted on the outskirts of Gaza carried school children," he told the Reuters news agency.
Hamas officials also said that their rocket attacks did not aim at civilians and that the group lacked the technology to avoid such casualties.
The Palestinians killed in the clashes included at least 11 militants, six civilians and a Gaza policemen, including an 11-year-old boy, the Reuters news agency cited Gaza medical officials as saying. At least 50 Palestinians, many of them civilians, were injured.
Immediately after the bus attack Israeli forces struck targets throughout the territory, targeting Hamas positions, smuggling tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt and the enclave's airport. The strikes damaged electricity lines and transformers, leading to blackouts in some parts of Gaza.
The Israeli attacks prompted Hamas officials to call for an emergency Arab League meeting and urged Arab governments to "raise their voices" to halt Israeli strikes.
Ismail Haniyah, the prime minister of Hamas in Gaza, sounded a defiant note Friday.
"Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip will not be able to break the will of the Palestinian people," he said.
Israeli officials, however, indicated in public comments that the army is likely to continue the attacks.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, issued a warning to Hamas on Friday after the bus attack, stating that the attack "crossed a line." He added: "Whoever tries to hurt or kill children is responsible for his own death. We hope this situation will be contained, but we will not shy away from any action - offensive or defensive - to protect our citizens."
Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right foreign minister, appeared to try to minimise possible international condemnation of the Israeli assaults, describing Thursday's bus attack as a "criminal act" and saying the international community should help Israel "overcome terror and defeat it."
Nevertheless, Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, issued a statement expressing concern about the "escalating violence" and urging Israel to act with "maximum restraint" to avoid civilian casualties.
The French foreign ministry called on both sides to stop the fighting immediately and that "these events recall, as if needed, the urgency of reaching a negotiated solution to this conflict," according to the Bloomberg news agency.
In addition to its retaliatory strikes against Gaza rocket fire, Israel is also seeking to avoid casualties with its cutting-edge Iron Dome missile-defence system that began operating last week. According to the army, it successfully intercepted Palestinian rockets aimed at the southern Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Beer Sheba.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
