Israel has ruled out an immediate truce in Gaza, saying the onus was on Palestinian militants to stop launching rockets from an arsenal it suggested could be depleted within days, while its aircraft kept up strikes in the enclave.
“We’re not holding ceasefire talks,” National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told a municipal event near Jerusalem, adding that Israel’s top priority was presently firing on militants.
Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli raid on the outskirts of Nablus in the northern West Bank, where clashes had erupted, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
A military spokesman said gunmen exchanged fire with Israeli forces.
Islamic Jihad’s armed wing said it would press on with rocket salvos as fighting entered a fifth day.
“The resistance prepared itself for months of confrontation,” Islamic Jihad said in a statement.
The Israeli military said aircraft struck Islamic Jihad command centres and rocket launchers in Gaza.
Huge clouds of smoke rose as loud explosions ripped through areas bombed.
In the Deir Al-Balah area of the central Gaza Strip, a building was flattened as houses nearby were knocked down.
There were no reports of casualties as residents sifted through piles of rubble.
“Destruction is miserable, the mind doesn’t accept it,” a resident, Marwan Al-Dirawi, told Reuters.
Read the article by Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams in The Canberra Times.