Sunday, November 18, 2012
Security building and media centre among targets hit as Israel keeps up bombardment for fifth straight day.
Israel is continuing its assault on the Gaza Strip for a fifth straight day, bombarding the Palestinian enclave from both the air and sea.
Several strikes hit Gaza City on Sunday morning. Huge plumes of smoke were billowing in the sky after a security building was hit and there were reports of many injuries.
An air raid before dawn targeted a building housing the offices of local Arab media, wounding several journalists from al-Quds television, a station Israel sees as a mouthpiece of the Hamas movement which rules the Gaza Strip.
"At least six journalists were wounded, with minor and moderate injuries, when Israeli warplanes hit the al-Quds TV office in the Showa and Housari building in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City," health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
Two other attacks on houses in the Jebalya refugee camp killed one child and wounded 12 other people, medical officials said.
Gaza has been under attack since Wednesday, when Israel launched a military offensive with the declared goal of deterring Gaza fighters from launching rockets into its territory.
Forty-seven Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 12 children, have been killed in Israel's raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.
Naval attacks
Israel has confirmed that its navy has shelled Gaza in addition to aerial bombardment.
It was unclear what the shells had hit, with the Israeli military's official Twitter account saying only: "[A] short while ago, Israeli Navy targeted several Hamas terror sites in the Gaza Strip" early on Sunday.
"These naval ships are off the coast of Gaza year-round," Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston, reporting from Sderot in southern Israel, said. "It now seems a lot of shelling is coming from these ships into Gaza City."
An Israeli attack on Saturday destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.
Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.
Hamas remained defiant, with its military spokesman Abu Ubaida insisting that despite Israel's blows the movement "is still strong enough to destroy the enemy".
"This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning," he told a televised news conference.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said on Saturday there were "some indications" a ceasefire could be reached soon between Israel and Gaza Palestinians, but he had no firm guarantees.
Egypt, which brokered an informal truce in October that has since collapsed, has said it is working for a new deal after its Prime Minister Hesham Qandil visited Gaza on Friday.