Israel hits Gaza, suspends talks
Israel and Palestinian militants resumed fire across the Gaza border yesterday, sparking panic across the war-torn enclave and halting truce talks.
Gaza emergency services said that a woman and a child were killed and 16 people injured in one strike in Gaza City.
Another eight people were hurt in earlier air raids across the strip, they said.
An Israeli military statement said that at least eight rockets were fired at Israel, with six falling on open ground and two more being intercepted by missile defences.
The rocket fire began several hours before a 24-hour truce was to expire, prompting Israel to order its negotiators back from ceasefire talks in Cairo and launch a new round of air strike on Gaza.
They hit at least 10 targets, according to army radio.
The fighting shattered nine days of relative quiet in the skies over Gaza and cast a dark shadow over Egyptian-mediated efforts to hammer out a longer-term truce.
"There has been no progress," Azzam al-Ahmed, the chief Palestinian negotiator in Cairo said yesterday. "Matters have become more complicated."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri denied the Islamist movement had fired rockets over the border, accusing Israel of trying to wreck the truce talks.
"We don't have any information about firing rockets from Gaza. The Israeli raids are intended to sabotage the negotiations in Cairo," he told AFP.
But Israel's US ally put the blame squarely on the group itself.
"Hamas has security responsibility for Gaza... Rocket fire came from Gaza," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
"As of right now, with today's developments, we are very concerned and it is our understanding the ceasefire has broken down."
The renewal of Israeli air strikes spread panic among Gaza residents.
An AFP reporter saw hundreds of Palestinians streaming out of Shejaiya, an eastern area of Gaza City which has been devastated by more than a month of fighting between Israel and the militant Islamist Hamas movement.
More poured out of the Zeitun and Shaaf areas, alarmed by a series of explosions and heading to shelter in UN schools, local witnesses said.
An Israeli official said the country's negotiating team had been ordered back from Cairo where Egypt has been pushing for a decisive end to the Gaza bloodshed, which has killed more than 2,000 Palestinians and 67 on the Israeli side.
Israel has vowed not to negotiate under fire, and Netanyahu has warned there would be "a very strong response" to any resumption of rocket attacks.
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