KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel —Israeli warplanes struck dozens of militant sites in Gaza early on Thursday, the second day of Israel’s deadly offensive against Hamas and other militant groups, and rockets fired from the enclave reached far into Israel, killing three civilians when one struck an apartment block in this small southern town.
The regional perils of the situation sharpened, meanwhile, as President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt warned on Thursday that his country stood by the Palestinians against what he termed Israeli aggression, echoing similar condemnation on Wednesday.
“Israel must realize that we don’t accept the aggression that negatively affects security and stability in the region,” he said before a meeting of senior ministers. Egypt, he said was telling the Palestinians in Gaza that “we stand by them to stop this assault on them.”Thursday’s deaths were the first casualties on the Israeli side since Israel launched its most ferocious assault on Gaza in four years in response to persistent Palestinian rocket fire.
A rocket on Thursday smashed into the top floor of an apartment building in Kiryat Malachi, about 15 miles north of Gaza. Two women and a man were killed, according to rescue officials and Army Radio. A baby was among the injured and several Israelis were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds after rockets hit other southern cities and towns, they said.
The apartment house was close to a field in a blue-collar neighborhood and the rocket tore open top-floor apartments, leaving twisted metal window frames and bloodstains.
Nava Chayoun, 40, who lives on the second floor, said her husband, Yitzhak, ran up the stairs immediately after the rocket struck and saw the body of a woman on the floor. He rescued two children from the same apartment and afterward, she said, she and her family “read psalms.”
It was the first time that a building in Kiryat Malachi had been struck and the farthest north a projectile had landed in the current violence. With schools closed after Wednesday’s turmoil, residents said, many people had stayed home with their children.
Residents said people living on the lower floors of the apartment house had taken cover in stairwells, as the police urged residents to do when they heard warning sirens, but those on the top floor apparently had not. Police said 180 rockets had been fired at southern Israel since Wednesday.
In Gaza, the death toll rose to 11 as Israel pummeled what the military described as medium- and long-range rocket and infrastructure sites and struck rocket-launching squads. The military said it had dispersed leaflets over Gaza warning residents to stay away from Hamas operatives and facilities, suggesting that more was to come.
Three Gaza militants were killed when Israeli missiles hit their motorcycles in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Palestinian security officials said they were most likely members of the Hamas military wing. Overnight, the body of a man, 65, was recovered from an open area that had been struck in the center of the Gaza Strip.
Five other civilians, including a baby and a 7-year-old girl, have been killed in Gaza since the operation began and at least 70 have been wounded, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.
The Israeli offensive opened with the killing of the top military commander of Hamas. It has damaged Israel’s fragile relations with Egypt and escalated the risks of a new war in the Middle East.
The Israel Defense Forces coupled the intense airstrikes with the threat of a ground invasion of Gaza, recalling its three-week operation in the winter of 2008-9, shifting infantry brigades and calling up some specialist reserves. The Israelis also warned all Hamas leaders in Gaza to stay out of sight or risk the same fate as the Hamas military commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, who was killed in a pinpoint airstrike on Wednesday as he was riding in a car on a Gaza street.
“We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a Twitter message. Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the military spokesman, said, “If I were a senior Hamas activist, I would look for a place to hide.”
Attacks Resume After Israeli Assault Kills Hamas Leader
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Attacks Resume After Israeli Assault Kills Hamas Leader
