GAZA CITY: Israel announced an all-out war on Hamas yesterday as it flattened buildings that housed government departments in a third day of bombings in the Gaza Strip. US-supplied F-16s also bombed homes of at least two top Hamas commanders. They were not at home at the time but several family members were killed.
The death toll since Saturday's massive air attacks reached 327 yesterday.
Palestinians retaliated with firing a salvo of rockets into Israel. One medium-range rocket fired at the Israeli city of Ashkelon killed an Arab construction worker there yesterday and wounded several others. He was the second Israeli killed since the beginning of the offensive.
Israel's bombings - more than 300 airstrikes since Saturday - reduced dozens of buildings to rubble. The military said naval vessels also bombarded targets from the sea.
Late Sunday, Israeli aircraft attacked a building in the Jebaliya refugee camp next to Gaza City, killing five children and teenagers under age 17 from the same family, Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said. In the southern town of Rafah, a toddler and his two teenage brothers were killed in an airstrike aimed at a Hamas commander, Hassanain said. In Gaza City, another attack killed two women.
Hospitals in the teeming coastal strip were in a state of chaos after more injured people flooded in, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
"We are completely overwhelmed by the number of people coming in with very serious injuries. I have never seen anything like this," an ICRC statement quoted the head of the surgical ward of Al-Shifa Hospital as saying. He said more medical supplies were urgently needed.
On orders of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, more than a dozen medical facilities in Riyadh have been put on high alert to receive injured Palestinians as soon as they arrive there. Two high-technology medical evacuation planes (Medevac) fitted with intensive medical care equipment have landed at Areesh airport to airlift the wounded.
"One Medevac plane, awaiting to airlift the injured from Gaza, has all equipment and facilities like those found in a hospital's intensive care unit," said Khaled Al-Mirghalani, spokesman of the Ministry of Health.
"In the first phase, injured Palestinians will be admitted to hospitals in Riyadh only," said Al-Mirghalani, adding that the injured will be flown back to Riyadh Airbase from where they will be transported by ambulance to local hospitals.
Wounded Palestinians finally passed through the Rafah crossing into Egypt yesterday as medical aid went in the other direction to the devastated strip.
Egyptian lorries loaded with medication moved in early afternoon into the neutral zone of the Rafah terminal to allow the transfer of their cargoes onto Palestinian vehicles.
The White House demanded that Hamas agree to respect a "sustainable and durable cease-fire." Spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Hamas had "once again shown its true colors as a terrorist organization" with attacks on Israel. Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk rejected any talk of a new truce with Israel unless all attacks on Gaza cease and the border crossings are reopened, and promised to confront any ground invasion.
- With input from Ghazanfar Ali Khan in Riyadh
