Hundreds turn out for Gaza funeral of Hamas military chief's wife and son

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/20/gaza-funeral-hamas-military-chief-wife-son

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Hundreds of Palestinians turned out on Wednesday for the funeral of the wife and son of the Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, who were killed overnight in an Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza City.

Hamas had urged Gazans to turn out in force for the funeral in Jabaliya refugee camp, after an attack which left at least one other Palestinian dead and injured a further 15 people. There were fears that there could be more bodies under the rubble.

The fate of Deif, one of Hamas's most senior figures who has survived Israeli attempts on his life in the past, is still unknown.

Israel called up 2,000 reserves on Wednesday, a day after the breakdown of peace talks in Cairo that aimed to bring an end to a six-week war with Palestinian militants in Gaza.

The Israel Defence Forces confirmed that Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers were at the Gaza border after 120 rockets were fired into Israel as the truce collapsed overnight. There is no indication yet whether Israel will launch a second ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources said 19 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes since Tuesday night, bring the Palestinian death toll during the war to 2,035, with more than 10,000 injured. A total of 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians – one of whom was a Thai national – have also died in the conflict.

Israel accused Hamas of violating the latest of a series of temporary ceasefires. It said three rockets were launched from Gaza on Tuesday evening and landed in an open area near the southern city of Be'er Sheva.

Iron Dome, Israel's anti-missile defence system, was quickly reactivated and sirens sounded in the centre and south of the country, and bomb shelters within 50 miles of the Gaza border were reopened.

The Palestinian Liberation Organisation said no Palestinian militant group had claimed responsibility for firing the three rockets that broke the ceasefire.

The situation escalated quickly, with rockets fired from Gaza later targeting Jerusalem and Ben Gurion airport. On Wednesday a direct hit was reported on a house near the southern city of Ashkelon, and Hamas claimed to have targeted for the first time an Israeli offshore platform off the Gazan coast.

An air strike in Gaza on Wednesday morning killed seven members of one family, including a woman and three children.

The offices of the Hamas-affiliated al-Aqsa TV were hit in another of at least 60 air strikes following the breakdown of the ceasefire. Hundreds of civilians fled their homes for UN shelters.

Gaza had been relatively quiet for the previous eight days under two successive ceasefires that allowed negotiations to proceed. A third 24-hour ceasefire was agreed in Cairo late on Monday night and was due to expire at midnight on Tuesday.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, ordered his negotiating team to leave talks on Tuesday evening. "The Cairo talks were based on an agreed premise of a total cessation of hostilities," said the Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev.

"When Hamas breaks the ceasefire they also break the premise for the Cairo talks. Accordingly the Israeli team has been called back as a result of today's rocket fire." It is not clear whether the team will return.

Palestinian negotiators also left Cairo, blaming Israel for the talks' failure. "Israel thwarted the contacts that could have brought peace," said the chief Palestinian negotiator, Azzam al-Ahmed.

The Palestinians had presented a final set of demands, he said, but Israel was "trying to impose what they want. This is impossible for us as Palestinians to accept that … the process of procrastination and stalling continues."

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, issued a statement condemning the breakdown of the ceasefire, adding that he was "gravely disappointed by the return to hostilities". He urged the sides not to allow matters to escalate.

The negotiations in Cairo have struggled to secure a long-term deal to end the conflict as both sides have sought a formula that would allow them to declare positive results from the war.

According to leaks, an outline agreement proposed by Egyptian mediators included the opening of crossings between Israel and Gaza, the import of construction materials under international supervision and the expansion of the permitted fishing zone to 12 miles over a period of six months.

The Palestinian demands for an airport and seaport, and the release of prisoners, would be deferred to further talks in about a month under the plan.

Israel wants the disarmament of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza, as well as the return by Hamas of the remains of two soldiers killed in fighting.

All Palestinian factions say the demilitarisation of Gaza is not up for negotiation. But Hamas publicly claims it is ready to share power in Gaza with the Palestinian Authority, which currently runs the West Bank.

A poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 92% of Jewish Israelis believed the war was justified. Almost half (48%) of those questioned thought an appropriate amount of force had been used by the Israeli military, 45% said too little force had been deployed and 6% thought too much had been used.