Airstrike kills 3 senior Hamas leaders

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed three senior leaders of the Hamas military wing on Thursday, the militant group said, in what is likely to be a major blow to the organization's morale and a significant scoop for Israeli intelligence.

The strike near Rafah was one of 20 the Israeli military said it carried out after midnight on Wednesday.

In a text message sent to the media, Hamas said three of its senior military leaders - Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Mohammed Barhoum and Raed al-Attar - were killed, along with three other people.

Gaza police and medical officials said scores more people remained under the rubble of a four-story structure destroyed in the airstrike.

The three Hamas leaders are considered to be at the senior levels of its military leadership and were involved in a number of high-profile attacks on Israeli targets.

The Israeli security agency Shin Bet confirmed the deaths of Shamaleh and al-Attar in an e-mail, but did not mention Barhoum.

The strikes followed the breakdown of Egyptian-mediated talks in Cairo aimed at producing a long-term truce and a future road map for Gaza after more than a month of fighting between Israel and Hamas-led Islamic militants.

The Gaza war has killed more than 2,000 Palestinians so far, mostly civilians. Israel has lost 67 people, all but three of them soldiers.

Palestinian health official Ashraf al-Kidra put the number of those missing at the site of the Rafah airstrike in the "dozens".

Elsewhere, another Israeli airstrike killed a 27-year-old man in central Gaza identified as Jomma Anwar Mayar, police said. Israel also hit at smuggling tunnels along the Gaza border with Egypt and at agricultural lands west of Rafah.

Israel said the airstrikes are in response to a resumption of Hamas rocket fire that scuttled a six-day cease-fire on Tuesday. The military says that only one rocket launch was registered since midnight, compared to more than 210 over the previous 30 hours.

'Deep regret'

On Wednesday, in the most spectacular Israeli strike since the cease-fire was breached, Hamas' shadowy military chief, Mohammed Deifm, was the object of an apparent assassination attempt that killed his wife and infant son.

In a nationally televised address on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed little willingness to return to the negotiating table after six weeks of war with Hamas.

"We are determined to continue the campaign with all means and as is needed," he said, his defense minister by his side. "We will not stop until we guarantee full security and quiet for the residents of the south and all citizens of Israel."

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry expressed "deep regret" over the breaking of the cease-fire. It said in a statement on Wednesday that it "continues bilateral contacts" with both sides aimed at restoring calm and securing a lasting truce that "serves the interest of the Palestinian people, especially in relation to the opening of the crossings and reconstruction".

An Egyptian compromise proposal calls for easing the Gaza blockade but not lifting it altogether or opening the territory's airports and seaports, as Hamas has demanded.

The Gaza blockade has greatly limited the movement of Palestinians in and out of the territory of 1.8 million people, restricted the flow of goods into Gaza and blocked virtually all exports.

(China Daily 08/22/2014 page11)