Residents receive phone calls to “evacuate“ before bombings

“Disproportionate response”

One Palestinian was killed and four wounded in the latest Israeli air attacks

GAZA (AlArabiya.net, Agencies)

An Israeli air strike on the Gaza stip Monday that left one dead was the lates in a series of strikes launched on Sunday to target a Hamas security complex and smuggling tunnels as media reported residents in Rafah had received phone calls for the Israeli army telling them to “evacuate.”

One Palestinian was killed and four others were wounded in the latest bombin on Monday, medical sources and witnesses said, a day after Israel vowed a "disproportionate" response to new rocket fire two weeks after the end of its bloody wa.r

Residents of Rafah and Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip said they received telephone calls from Israeli security forces warning them to evacuate areas from which fighters are operating, according to Israeli news website Ynet News.

Hundreds of thousands of buildings have been demolished The aircraft carried out half a dozen strikes Sunday night after three Israelis were injured by a mortar salvo, including two soldiers and the first Israeli civilian hurt since a Jan. 18 truce ended Israel's devastating 22-day offensive in the coastal enclave.. There were no reported casualties in the Sunday air attacks. Five of the strikes targeted tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt, used to smuggle weapons into the coastal enclave, in a zone known as the Philadelphi corridor. A further Israeli attack was on a security headquarters in a village in central Gaza that residents said had been vacated after Israel telephoned warnings to Palestinians to leave buildings that housed any weapons. An Israeli military statement said that "in response to rocket and mortar fire today, the air force has attacked a number of targets in the (Gaza) Strip, including six tunnels and a Hamas position." Hamas said five tunnels had been bombed. Egypt, with U.S. backing, has been trying to broker a long-term ceasefire that would end Hamas weapons smuggling into Gaza and also lead to a reopening of Gaza border crossings, one of Hamas's main demands. In a seperate incident Monday, Israeli soldiers in the West Bank shot dead a Palestinian man who had opened fire at the patrol near Beit Yatir, near the southern city of Hebron, according to Israeli emergency services.

" We agree in principle with a one-year truce " Fawzi Barhum, Hamas Hamas said Monday it is in favor of a one-year truce in and around the Gaza Strip on condition the territory's crossings are opened, a Hamas spokesman said. "We agree in principle with a one-year truce," spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP, but added that Hamas has not ruled out an 18-month truce proposed by the Egyptian mediators. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in Cairo on Sunday for talks on the situation. Hamas officials are also due in the Egyptian capital. Israel's renewed air strikes came as its leaders took a hard line against rocket fire from Gaza ahead of a Feb. 10 national election, which opinion polls predict right-wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who favors a tougher stance toward Hamas, will win. About a dozen rockets and mortar bombs were fired from Gaza on Sunday, the Israeli military said. A wing of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group belonging to Abbas's Fatah faction, said it fired some of the rockets, but not all were claimed.

“Disproportionate response” " We will act according to new rules which will ensure that we will not be drawn into a war of incessant shooting on the southern border, which would deprive the residents of the south of a normal life " Ehud Olmert "The government's position was from the outset that if there is shooting at the residents of the south, there will be a harsh Israeli response that will be disproportionate, " Olmert, who is not an election candidate, said at the weekly cabinet meeting. "We will act according to new rules which will ensure that we will not be drawn into a war of incessant shooting on the southern border, which would deprive the residents of the south of a normal life," he said. Israeli radio quoted Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a candidate for prime minister as head of the centrist Kadima party, as saying Israel would mount a new offensive in Gaza if necessary to halt rocket fire from Gaza. Hamas spokesman, Taher al-Nono, also urged all Palestinian factions to "respect the national consensus" on the ceasefire the Islamist group declared two weeks ago after Israel announced it was halting the Gaza offensive. Israel was criticized internationally for the deaths, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, of more than 1,300 Palestinians, including at least 700 civilians in the offensive it launched on Dec. 27. Critics said Israel had responded disproportionately, in its air and ground offensive in heavily populated areas, to cross-border rocket attacks over eight years that killed 18 people. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed in the Gaza campaign. Since the two-week-old truce, in addition to Sunday's injuries, an Israeli soldier was killed and three others were wounded when a bomb exploded next to their patrol. Israeli air strikes have killed three Palestinians and wounded 10.