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Palestinian children and a man wounded in Israeli missile strikes wait in the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City yesterday. Israeli warplanes demolished dozens of Hamas compounds across Gaza in unprecedented waves of simultaneous air strikes. Gaza medics said at least 205 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in the single deadliest day in Gaza fighting in recent memory.
Palestinian children and a man wounded in Israeli missile strikes wait in the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City yesterday. Israeli warplanes demolished dozens of Hamas compounds across Gaza in unprecedented waves of simultaneous air strikes. Gaza medics said at least 205 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in the single deadliest day in Gaza fighting in recent memory.
Israeli attacks kill 205 in bloody day in Gaza
Created: 2008-12-28
ISRAELI warplanes and helicopters pounded the Hamas ruled Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least 205 people in one of the bloodiest days in the Palestinians' conflict with Israel.
Militants in the Gaza Strip, who have launched dozens of rocket attacks against Israel since a truce expired just over a week ago, fired more salvoes that killed one Israeli man and wounded several others.
Both sides said they were ready to stage wider assaults as Palestinian health service officials put the death toll at 205 with more than 300 injured.
Hamas threatened to unleash "hell" to avenge the dead, including possible suicide bombings inside Israel as morgues across the Gaza Strip ran out of space for bodies.
Black smoke billowed over Gaza City, where the dead and wounded lay scattered on the ground after the Israeli air strikes destroyed more than 30 security compounds, including two where Hamas was hosting graduation ceremonies for new recruits.
At the main police headquarters, some rescue workers beat their heads and shouted "God is greatest." One badly wounded man lying nearby quietly recited verses from the Koran. Hamas called the assault a "massacre."
Israel said it had targeted "terrorist infrastructure" following days of rocket attacks from Gaza on southern Israel that caused few injuries.
"There is a time for calm and a time for fighting, and now the time has come to fight," Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said.
The rocket attacks had increased pressure on Israeli political leaders to strike Hamas ahead of a February 10 election.
Barak said that the military campaign would take time and would be expanded "as necessary." Hamas leaders could be targeted, an army spokeswoman said. Hamas reported a new Israeli air strike after dark in southern Gaza.
The mayor of Ashkelon, the Mediterranean coastal city in range of Hamas's Grad rockets, said Israeli military planners had told him the operation against Gaza City would last for "more than a week."
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a leading candidate to become Israel's next prime minister, called for international support against "an extremist Islamist organisation ... that is being supported by Iran," Israel's arch-foe.
"Only last week Israel was attacked from the Gaza Strip and in a day about 80 missiles and mortars were fired against Israeli civilians," she said. "Enough is enough."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an "immediate halt to all violence." US President George Bush put the onus on Hamas to prevent further escalation. "Hamas' continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Militants in the Gaza Strip, who have launched dozens of rocket attacks against Israel since a truce expired just over a week ago, fired more salvoes that killed one Israeli man and wounded several others.
Both sides said they were ready to stage wider assaults as Palestinian health service officials put the death toll at 205 with more than 300 injured.
Hamas threatened to unleash "hell" to avenge the dead, including possible suicide bombings inside Israel as morgues across the Gaza Strip ran out of space for bodies.
Black smoke billowed over Gaza City, where the dead and wounded lay scattered on the ground after the Israeli air strikes destroyed more than 30 security compounds, including two where Hamas was hosting graduation ceremonies for new recruits.
At the main police headquarters, some rescue workers beat their heads and shouted "God is greatest." One badly wounded man lying nearby quietly recited verses from the Koran. Hamas called the assault a "massacre."
Israel said it had targeted "terrorist infrastructure" following days of rocket attacks from Gaza on southern Israel that caused few injuries.
"There is a time for calm and a time for fighting, and now the time has come to fight," Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said.
The rocket attacks had increased pressure on Israeli political leaders to strike Hamas ahead of a February 10 election.
Barak said that the military campaign would take time and would be expanded "as necessary." Hamas leaders could be targeted, an army spokeswoman said. Hamas reported a new Israeli air strike after dark in southern Gaza.
The mayor of Ashkelon, the Mediterranean coastal city in range of Hamas's Grad rockets, said Israeli military planners had told him the operation against Gaza City would last for "more than a week."
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a leading candidate to become Israel's next prime minister, called for international support against "an extremist Islamist organisation ... that is being supported by Iran," Israel's arch-foe.
"Only last week Israel was attacked from the Gaza Strip and in a day about 80 missiles and mortars were fired against Israeli civilians," she said. "Enough is enough."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an "immediate halt to all violence." US President George Bush put the onus on Hamas to prevent further escalation. "Hamas' continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Agencies
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