Terwijl het geweld weer is opgelaaid wordt er ook serieus over een langdurig bestand gesproken. Volgens het TV station Al Arabiya zou Hamas een Egyptisch voorstel voor een bestand van een jaar hebben geaccepteerd, dat Israel nog in beraad heeft.
Intussen heeft premier Olmert een 'disproportioneel antwoord' op de nieuwe raketbeschietingen aangekondigd. De internationale gemeenschap is geneigd elk Israelisch antwoord als 'disproportioneel' te kwalificeren, dus dat voldoet mooi aan de verwachtingen.
RP & WB
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Last update - 00:11 01/01/2009
Israel Air Force aircraft late Sunday bombed a Hamas security building in the central Gaza Strip and two other targets in the southern coastal territory, Palestinian witnesses said.
Witnesses in the central Gaza village of Mughraqa said a missile struck after dark in a cluster of caravans that served as a Hamas security headquarters.
They said the site had been evacuated, apparently after Israel telephoned warnings to Palestinians in Gaza to leave any buildings where weapons were located.
The other two strikes were on suspected sites of tunnels along the border with Egypt, Hamas said. Palestinians reported huge explosions as Israeli warplanes dropped bombs on the border, where Hamas operates tunnels to
smuggle in weapons, food and other goods.
Before the attack, Israeli aircraft flew over the Gaza-Egypt border, setting off sonic booms, and witnesses said hundreds of people who work in the tunnels there fled, along with residents.
Earlier, Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah reported receiving recorded phone messages warning those who live near weapons tunnels or storage facilities to evacuate their homes at once.
"Everybody who is near any place used for terror or weapon storage facility or tunnels, should evacuate the area immediately," the voice message warned, according to witnesses.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Witnesses in the central Gaza village of Mughraqa said a missile struck after dark in a cluster of caravans that served as a Hamas security headquarters.
They said the site had been evacuated, apparently after Israel telephoned warnings to Palestinians in Gaza to leave any buildings where weapons were located.
The other two strikes were on suspected sites of tunnels along the border with Egypt, Hamas said. Palestinians reported huge explosions as Israeli warplanes dropped bombs on the border, where Hamas operates tunnels to
smuggle in weapons, food and other goods.
Before the attack, Israeli aircraft flew over the Gaza-Egypt border, setting off sonic booms, and witnesses said hundreds of people who work in the tunnels there fled, along with residents.
Earlier, Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah reported receiving recorded phone messages warning those who live near weapons tunnels or storage facilities to evacuate their homes at once.
"Everybody who is near any place used for terror or weapon storage facility or tunnels, should evacuate the area immediately," the voice message warned, according to witnesses.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Olmert vows 'disproportionate' response to rocket attacks
The attacks came hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed a "disproportionate" response to rocket and mortar fire from Gaza.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday that the time had not yet come for another offensive against Hamas in the coastal strip, but warned that there could be need for a renewed operation in the future.
Also on Sunday, Arabic TV station quoted Hamas officials as saying that the Islamist group had agreed to an Egyptian proposal for a one-year truce in the Gaza Strip, effect Thursday.
Meanwhile, two Israel Defense Forces soldiers and a civilian were lightly wounded in the spate of cross-border rocket and mortar attacks on Sunday, straining the cease-fire that ended Israel's 22-day campaign in Gaza.
Barak on Sunday also attacked ministers pressing for military action in response to the attacks as doing so from a lack of experience and understanding.
"Leave this up to the IDF chief of staff, the GOC Southern Command and with the greatest of modesty, to me as well," Barak said. "We know better what to do, and when."
Earlier Sunday, Barak said that Israel would never sign a deal with Hamas. He made the comments after a bitter cabinet row over an Egyptian-mediated deal for a one-year truce in the Gaza Strip.
Nevertheless, Barak urged the government to begin taking a more "realistic" approach to regional challenges.
"We will never sign an agreement with Hamas," Barak told ministers, "I simply suggest that we begin speaking in a more realistic way - it will help us deal with the real challenges of the Middle East, rather than the reality as we imagine it to be.
Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni engaged in a harsh argument during Sunday's cabinet meeting over Israel's response to the Egyptian-brokered deal for a year-long truce with Hamas.
Barak, the Labor chairman, spoke in favor of agreeing to the deal, while Livni, the Kadima chairwoman, held that Israel should reject it.
Livni attacked Barak for maintaining a far too conciliatory position toward Hamas that "reconciles itself with the Hamas regime and wants to reach understandings with it."
The foreign minister contrasted this stance with another one that she said, "Operates in a fashion that will at the end of the day bring about an end to the Hamas regime.
"An arrangement with Hamas will give it legitimacy?(and) bring about a change in the world's stance regarding Hamas."
Barak, for his part, has recently declared that, "Israel is on the verge of a long period of quiet," despite the continued rocket fire from Gaza.
Livni added that Israel's 22-day offensive against Hamas in Gaza, code-named Operation Cast Lead, was supposed to restore its deterrent capability.
"If they fire upon us we must regain power of deterrence by military means," she said.
Following the cabinet meeting, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held a three-way meeting on the issue with the pair, who are both prime ministerial hopefuls. Olmert's position on the matter is not yet known.
Report: Hamas agrees to year-long Gaza truce from Thursday
Hamas sources were quoted by Al-Arabiya television earlier Sunday as saying that the the Islamist militant group has accepted an Egyptian proposal for the truce with Israel in Gaza, to take effect on Thursday.
A Hamas delegation is expected to arrive in Cairo on Monday to give the group's final answer to the initiative.
The official spokesman for Egypt's foreign ministry, Hossam Zaki, refused to confirm or deny the report on the Dubai-based Arabic satellite television station.
According to the report, Hamas has agreed to the deployment along Gaza's border crossings of forces under the control of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the rival Fatah movement.
The deal stipulates that the PA forces will coordinate their activities with Hamas.
Hamas' acceptance of the deal apparently led Abbas to cancel a trip to the Czech Republic and travel to Cairo instead.
Al-Arabiya reported that while in Egypt, Abbas discussed mechanisms that would enable the Gaza-Egypt border crossing at Rafah to be opened on Thursday, in parallel with an announcement by Hamas of the year-long truce in Gaza.
Israel, according to the report, has agreed not to interfere in the running of the Egypt-Gaza border crossing.
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