Israel says it is prepared to broaden Gaza attack

The Israeli government announced that the killing is the beginning of an operation against Gaza militants. Israel said it will be targeting sites in Gaza where mortars and rockets are stored.

Israel sent a “clear message” to Hamas through the killing of its top military commander and is ready to widen its operation in Gaza if necessary, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has warned.

“Today we sent a clear message to Hamas and other terrorist organisations, and if it becomes necessary we are prepared to expand the operation,” he said in a televised address on Wednesday evening.

Speaking hours after a major wave of air strikes pounded targets in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, killing Hamas’s military chief Ahmad Jabari and six other people, Netanyahu vowed that Israel would not tolerate any further rocket fire on its territory.

“Hamas and the terror organisations have chosen to escalate their attacks on the citizens of Israel in recent days. We will not tolerate a situation in which Israeli citizens are threatened by rocket fire,” he said after consultations with his security cabinet.

On Wednesday evening, US President Barack Obama spoke to Netanyahu by telephone.

Arab League foreign ministers will meet in emergency session on Friday to discuss the escalating violence.

Prime Minister Netanyahu says Israel will keep doing everything necessary to protect its citizens, including expanding its operation in Gaza. Hamas militants frequently fire rockets into Israel from Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza has killed the top military commander of Hamas with Israel warning other Hamas members not to “show their faces above ground” in the next few days.

An Israeli missile killed Ahmed al-Jaabari Wednesday as he drove in a car in Gaza City, shattering a tacit cease-fire that lasted less than a day. Israeli news reports say his son was also killed.

The attack was part of a wave of airstrikes against Islamic militants in Gaza which Palestinians say killed seven other people, including two children.

Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence service said Jaabari was killed because of his “decade-long terrorist activity,” including the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006. He was one of Israel’s most wanted men and is the most senior Hamas official to be killed since an Israeli invasion of Gaza four years ago.

Top commander of Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam brigades, Ahmed Al-Jaabari, front right, pictured in Cairo, Oct. 18, 2011.

Exchanges of rocket fire and aerial bombardments between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza resumed Wednesday evening after the attack.

Hamas warned Israel that “the occupation has opened the gates of hell.” Egypt, which borders Gaza, has recalled its ambassador to Israel and is calling for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

​​Television footage broadcast by Israel’s government station showed Palestinian rescue workers struggling to extinguish flames engulfing a car on a Gaza street. The passenger compartment appeared to have been destroyed by the blast.

Gaza resident Mohammad Dawwas said the situation looks like a “war is starting in Gaza” with multiple air strikes sowing panic, people running home and a prevailing fear settling in.

“Airstrikes are everywhere, especially in Gaza City and the [southern and northern] Gaza Strip. People are running, going home, afraid of being injured, being shot, being hit,” he said.

Ceasefire broken

​​Israel leaders and Palestinian militants in Gaza Tuesday had tacitly agreed to a cease-fire after four days of cross-border bombardments in which seven Gaza Palestinians were killed, and civilians in southern Israel were wounded.

Hamas spokesman Abu Zuhri said: “Israel will regret the moment they even thought of doing this.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the separate West Bank territory, condemned the Israeli operation.

“President Mahmoud Abbas… warned of the seriousness of the Israeli escalation and demanded an immediate end to the aggression,” a statement carried on the official Wafa news agency said.

Arab League foreign ministers will meet in emergency session on Friday.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for an “immediate de-escalation of tensions”.

The United States said it supported Israel’s right to self-defence, and condemned militant rocket attacks on southern Israel.

State department spokesman Mark Toner added in a statement that “we encourage Israel to continue to take every effort to avoid civilian casualties”.

The British Foreign Office issued a statement saying: “We continue to call on all sides to exercise restraint to prevent a dangerous escalation that would be in no-one’s interests.”