Israel launched air strikes and a ground operation on Wednesday against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip where Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas in a bid to ease tensions.
Abbas, whose secular Fatah faction shares a shaky two-month-old unity government with the ruling Hamas, hoped to convince Hamas and other groups to stop cross-border rocket attacks against Israel as part of a renewed ceasefire with the Jewish state, Palestinian officials said. But as Abbas and Haniyeh met at an undisclosed location in the narrow coastal strip, Hamas's armed wing said in a statement: "Our strikes against the enemy will continue."
Israel has also resisted any ceasefire that it believes Hamas would use to rearm and strengthen its hold on power. The top-level meeting was the first since a surge in factional violence this month verging on civil war. Despite the latest ceasefire, tensions between Hamas and Fatah remain high.
Israel's bombing campaign against Hamas entered a second week with air strikes that destroyed two buildings the army said were being used to manufacture and store munitions. Palestinians denied the buildings held weapons. Hospital officials said seven Palestinians were wounded. In a rare move, Israeli ground forces entered a small village in southern Gaza. During the brief raid, the troops held seven Palestinians for questioning, Israeli army sources said.
One of the Palestinians, 17-year-old Samer Qdaih, said the troops threatened to return to flatten the neighbourhood if rocket fire against Israeli towns continued.
At least eight rockets were fired at southern Israel on Wednesday, compared to 10 on Tuesday, the Israeli army and Palestinian witnesses said. Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility for one salvo. There was no word of casualties.
A woman was killed on Monday in the Israeli town of Sderot, the first fatality in a rocket attack since November. Nearly 200 rockets have landed in Israel in the last week, the army said. An earlier Abbas-Haniyeh meeting was called off after Israel said on Tuesday it could target Haniyeh over the rocket fire.
FACTIONAL FIGHTING: Government spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Wednesday's meeting focused on trying to end factional fighting, Israel's air campaign and the chances of renewing a ceasefire with Israel.
"The president's position is clear: He's demanding the ensuring of calm and the stopping of rockets," Hamad said. The Hamas-led government wanted a "comprehensive and mutual calm" that included the occupied West Ban, he added. Like Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees militant group said it would "continue to bombard Zionist settlements with rockets as long as the aggression and bombardment to our people and fighters continues".
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said this week that Hamas exploited previous periods of calm to "build up its power" and smuggle arms into Gaza from Egypt. Israel has said its raids to detain suspected militants in the West Bank are necessary to stop planned attacks on Israelis.
Abbas met later in Gaza with leaders from factions including Hamas to try to convince them to cease rocket fire in order to get Israel to stop the air strikes.
"Abbas urged the factions to stop rocket attacks in order not to give Israel a pretext to continue its military offensive on the Gaza Strip," a Palestinian official said. Representatives of the factions were not immediately available for comment.
Some 50 Palestinians were killed in the latest round of factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah. A ceasefire seemed largely to be holding, and Egypt has proposed convening talks in Cairo to try to settle Hamas-Fatah disagreements. Israeli air strikes over the last week have killed at least 35 Palestinians, medical officials said in Gaza. Militant groups said 23 of the dead were fighters.
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