Air force hits Gaza after rockets barrage south
Israeli aircraft strike Hamas targets in Gaza Strip after 10 rockets explode in southern Israel; IDF patrol comes under fire
Ten rockets fired from the Gaza
Strip exploded in southern Israel Monday, prompting Israeli retaliatory
strikes on the Hamas-controlled territory.Red
alert sirens sounded Monday morning in Sderot and the Sha’ar Hanegev
region of southern Israel, adjacent to the Palestinian enclave.Seven rockets fell in open areas in the Sha’ar
Hanegev region and outside the city of Sderot, causing no injuries or
damage. One rocket exploded in Sderot, causing damage to a road and
several shops.Another rocket struck the Eshkol region of southern Israel, but regional officials said the warning sirens did not go off.According
to Army Radio, the Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted an
inbound rocket as well.A police spokesman said police bomb disposal
experts were searching for the remains of the projectiles.The IDF
dispatched two attack helicopters to
the northern Gaza Strip to identify the source of the rocket fire and
the choppers fired “warning shots” into the Strip.Later on Monday, the
Israeli Air Force carried
out airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, hitting targets in Khan Younis,
Nasirat and Deir al-Balah. According to the IDF, Israeli aircraft struck
two “terror activity sites” in the southern Gaza Strip and a third in
the central Gaza Strip in response to the rocket fire. The IDF said
direct hits were confirmed.The Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported
that one government security agent was hurt in an IAF strike in the
central Gaza Strip.Earlier in the morning, a Gaza-based terrorist
group launched a rocket-propelled grenade at an IDF patrol near the
security fence east of the city of Deir al-Balah. According to the
Palestinian Safa news agency, the rocket missed its target, and the
Israeli soldiers returned fire.The IDF confirmed that an army patrol
identified an RPG fired in its general direction, but said the soldiers
did not fire back.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either of the attacks.
According to the
IDF,
terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip have fired at least 108 rockets and
mortars into Israel since the beginning of 2014.IDF spokesman Lt. Col.
Peter Lerner responded
to the escalation of hostilities in southern Israel saying that it was
the IDF’s “obligation to seek out and target those who wish to attack
our civilians and soldiers and to eliminate their capabilities. Hamas
rocket terrorism is an intolerable reality Israelis should not have to
accept.”
Palestinians issue list of demands for extension of peace talks
Keeping
peace process alive would require settlement freeze, prisoner release,
drawing of future border, senior Fatah official says
By Times of Israel staff
April 21, 2014, 11:59 am
A senior Fatah official said
Monday that the Palestinian leadership has put forward seven terms by
which they would extend peace talks with Israel beyond their April 29
deadline.Amin
Maqboul, a member of the Fatah revolutionary council, told the
Palestinian newspaper al-Quds that the Palestinian Authority would agree
to an extension of negotiations if Israel agreed to: announce the basis
on which future talks will be held; draw the outline of the borders of a
Palestinian state within the next three months; halt settlement
construction; withdraw Israeli troops from the West Bank’s Area C to the
lines held before the Second Intifada; release the fourth wave of
prisoners that it has until now refused to do; end what he called
“disruptions” in Jerusalem and open Palestinian institutions in the
city.Until now Israel has refused to freeze
settlement construction in the West Bank as part of the peace process,
and won’t release the final 26 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails
because it objects to the freeing of 14 Israeli Arab terrorists included
in that list.Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
told Israeli opposition MKs visiting him in the West Bank city of
Ramallah last Wednesday that if talks were extended, he would want the
first three months “devoted to a serious discussion of borders,” Haaretz
reported.Maqboul said that the Palestinian demands were given to
American mediator Martin Indyk and Israel has yet to respond to
them.Prominent Fatah member Azzam al-Ahmad
confirmed that the Palestinians have demanded that, should the
negotiations be extended, the first three months be dedicated to drawing
the border of a future Palestinian state. He said that no agreement to
extend peace talks has been reached, and that the latest rounds of
meetings by negotiators Saeb Erekat and Tzipi Livni have yielded no
progress.A senior Palestinian official quoted by the
Palestine News Network on
Monday said that during Friday’s meeting Indyk presented no new
proposals on how to salvage the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.Officials in Jerusalem on Friday also said
that no progress was made in emergency talks that took place between
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators the night before, and that the two
sides would meet again this week after the Passover holiday.Maqboul’s list of demands were published a day
after a report in the Israeli press said that Abbas had threatened to
dissolve the PA and disband Palestinian security forces operating in the
West Bank if peace negotiations with Israel fail, a move which would
create huge security and diplomatic problems for Israel.According to Palestinian sources cited by
Yedioth Ahronoth on Sunday, Abbas and top PA officials are considering
the drastic move, which would involve canceling the 1993 Oslo Accords
and announcing that the Palestinian Authority is a “government under
occupation” without full sovereignty, which would technically move full
responsibility for the Palestinians, in the West Bank at least, to
Israel.The threat, which has reportedly been passed
on to Israel, would also disband and abolish PA security forces
operating in the West Bank, theoretically opening the way for expanded
Palestinian unrest against Israeli forces. The move could also prompt a
surge in international legal and diplomatic action against Israel.Yedioth said a vote on the move is scheduled
for a PLO meeting on Saturday, three days before the peace talks are
currently scheduled to end.
