Live blog: Gaza under attack
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Since midnight last night, 55 rockets and mortar shells have been fired into Israel from Gaza, Israel said in a statement. Eight of these rockets have been shot down while the rest fell into open areas.
Damage to houses was reported in the Eshkol region while homes in Hof Ashkelon suffered electivity blackouts after a Hamas strike damaged infastructure.
A hashtag with the phrase We Are All Hamas in Arabic #كلنا_حماس has begun trending online. It is said to be in reponse to comments made previosuly by Israel's Netanyahu that most Arabs backed Israel over Hamas.
According to analytics site TweetReach, the hashtag is currently reaching tens of thosands of accounts every minute.
Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal has vowed to continue fighting Israel until the self-proclaimed Jewish state meets Palestinian conditions for a permanent ceasefire, especially the lifting of a seven-year-long blockade on the Gaza Strip.
In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency on Thursday, Meshaal accused Israel of perpetrating a "holocaust" in the embattled Gaza Strip.
"We are determined to realise the demands of the Palestinian people, especially lifting the siege and securing the release of [Palestinian] detainees," Meshaal said.
The death toll in Gaza reaches 24, accordig to Palestinian medical sources.
A cartoon in Israeli Haaretz newspaper depicts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu throwing darts at a poster of Mohammed Deif, who is believed to have survived five Israeli assasination attempts.
The Tuesday attempted assassination of Hamas's military leader, Mohammed Deif, in Rafah was a "very complex intelligence operation that succeeded in producing results," a senior Israeli security source says.
"The success is that we got to three targets in one day. That fact that we hit a place in which Deif was suspected to be is a fact. What exactly happened there, is not yet known," the source told Haaretz newspaper.
Deif is believed to have survived the attack, although this has not been confirmed. His wife and infant son, however, were killed in the strike and buried yesterday in Gaza.
Initial Palestinian reports indicate that an Israeli strike has killed four people at a funeral in Gaza City
Latest column by Meron Rapoport looks into what is tobe gained by Israel re-launching the Gaza offensive and how Israel will proceed differently this time around.
"In a way, this airstrike encapsulates the current Israeli war with Hamas. The targets was considered by Israel as military, yet the victims ended up as mainly civilians. The goal is to hit Hamas so hard that it will lose the will to continua on fighting. But Israel fails continuously to achieve this goal so it is forced to go for one more strike, one more blow, which will allow it to present to itself and to the world the "victory image" it is looking for.
Ma'an news agency is also reporting that at least one body has been pulled from the rubble in Gaza.
Israeli airstrikes on Thursday morning pounded Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, as well as Gaza City bringing the Thursday death toll to 16.
Eight people are believed to have been killed in the latest round of raids, including a 13-year-old and three children. This is on top of the seven people killed overnight, which included three Hamas leaders and four children, Palestinian sources said.
"Israel targeted a group of citizens from one family, most of whom are children in the agricultural land centre of Gaza City," MEE contributor Mohammed Omer in Gaza said.
A further Palestinian also died of his injuries, AFP reported.
The condition of an Israeli civilian, wounded by mortar shrapnel in Eshkon this morning has deteriorated. While originally described as lightly injured, medical crews have since upgraded the status to moderate to serious.