GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Cross-border fighting between Gaza and Israel, touched off by Israel’s killing of a top militant leader, showed no signs of letting up on its third day Sunday. Gaza militants fired dozens of rockets at Israeli towns, hitting an empty school, and Israeli airstrikes killed three Gazans, including a boy and a farm guard.
Egypt tried to mediate but failed to end the worst violence in more than a year, which has killed 18 Gazans, all but two of them militants, and disrupted the lives of about 1 million Israelis living within Gaza rocket range.
Even so, Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers seemed eager to avoid a full-scale conflict. A three-week war three years ago left both sides badly bruised, Israel in the diplomatic arena and Hamas on the battlefield.
In the current round, Hamas has kept its large rocket arsenal and thousands of fighters out of the confrontation, even though it has not tried to stop two smaller Gaza groups, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees, from launching rockets and mortars.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged that Hamas did not take part in the rocket salvos. Up to now, Israel has blamed Hamas for all violence from Gaza because it rules the territory.
Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, said Sunday that “we are not interested in escalation in and of itself.”
On a visit to southern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that the airstrikes would continue as long as necessary.
“We have a clear policy: We will hit anyone who plans to harm us, who prepares to harm us and who harms us,” he said in a meeting with local leaders.
Israel said it launched Friday’s initial airstrike, which killed PRC leader Zuhair al-Qaissi in a car in downtown Gaza, to stop a plan by his splinter group to infiltrate Israel through Egypt’s lawless Sinai Peninsula. Israel says the PRC was behind an attack on the border in August that killed eight Israelis.
Palestinians across the political spectrum accused Israel of deliberately escalating tensions. The groups involved in firing rockets dismissed truce offers presented by Egypt.
“We will not give calm for free, and the blood of our leaders and martyrs will not be spilled in vain,” said a PRC spokesman who uses the nom de guerre Abu Mujahed.
Egypt was trying to broker a truce but insisted Israel stop its airstrikes first, said Yas-ser Othman, Egypt’s envoy to the Palestinian Authority. Representatives of militant groups were in Cairo for talks.
Trying to claim a middle ground, Hamas leaders issued fiery statements Sunday in support of those firing rockets, but Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh also noted that “the brothers in Egypt are working around the clock to stop the (Israeli) aggression.”
The U.S. and the U.N. called on both sides to show restraint.
