The cease-fire collapsed yesterday amid a massive rocket attack by Hamas on Israel. The reason for the attack according to Hamas senior official Moussa Abu Marzuk is that Israel tried to assassinate Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, one of the top targets on the hit list of Israel's General Security Services.
Abu Marzuk did not say whether Deif was injured in the attack but reports coming out of Gaza suggest that three civilians including Deif's wife and daughter were killed in the air attack on Gaza's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.
Earlier yesterday the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas collapsed after the Palestinians began firing rockets and mortars over southern Israel. Israel responded with air strikes on Gaza and from 8 pm last night there were massive attacks with dozens of rockets targeting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Rishon Lezion and other locations in central Israel. The heaviest rocket fire was between 11 pm and midnight. Iron Dome intercepted many rockets and there were no casualties although a car did reportedly go up in flames in Tel Aviv. Hamas claimed to have fired over 50 rockets at Israel.
Israel accused Hamas of allowing other organizations to violate the cease-fire yesterday afternoon because truce talks in Cairo were not progressing.
Minister of Economy Naftali Bennett said, "When you want to beat a terror organization you must defeat them. When you conduct talks with a terror organization you get more terror. Hamas thinks that firing rockets brings achievements in negotiations and so it fired even during a cease-fire. Missiles are not a mistake from our point of view but a method. Only a harsh response by a sovereign state that is having missiles fired on its territory can stop the situation from deteriorating. Sooner or later Israel must defeat Hamas there is no way out of it."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 20, 2014
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