GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 19 (Reuters) – Israel bombed dozens of
suspected guerrilla sites in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on
Monday and Palestinian rocket fire from the enclave dropped off
as international efforts to broker a truce intensified.

Ten civilians and two field commanders from the Islamic
Jihad faction were killed and at least 30 other Palestinians
were hurt in the new air strikes, hospital officials said,
bringing the death toll from six days of clashes in Gaza to 85.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel bombed dozens of suspected guerrilla sites in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Monday and Palestinian rocket fire from the enclave dropped off as international efforts to broker a truce intensified.

Ten civilians and two field commanders from the Islamic Jihad faction were killed and at least 30 other Palestinians were hurt in the new air strikes, hospital officials said, bringing the death toll from six days of clashes in Gaza to 85.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Some of the Palestinian rockets fired far into Israel during the Gaza flare-up have lacked powerful warheads because they were stripped down to increase range and spread alarm over a wider population, Israeli security sources said on Sunday.

“Our assessment is that the prestige of setting off alarms deep in Israel, and being perceived as fighting on, is as important to them now as spilling our blood,” said an Israeli official briefed on security cabinet decisions.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israel rushed a fifth Iron Dome air defense battery into service in the Tel Aviv area on Saturday, using it within hours to shoot down a rocket fired at the coastal metropolis from the Gaza Strip.

But the successful interception, witnessed by a Reuters correspondent, appeared to stretch the capabilities of the unit meant to provide coverage for Israel’s biggest conurbation, which includes its main international airport, 15 km (6 miles) inland.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Defence Minister Ehud Barak will seek cabinet approval for funds that could provide Israel with three new Iron Dome rocket interceptors, officials said on Friday as cross-border fighting surged in Gaza.

Israel’s military air defence corps has four Iron Dome batteries deployed and will receive a fifth from state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd after Barak rushed its production, his ministry said in a statement.

JERUSALEM, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Israeli tanks and troops
massed outside Gaza and the military said on Friday it was
calling up 16,000 reservists, signs of a possible imminent
invasion of the Palestinian enclave after 48 hours of air
strikes.

Israel’s warplanes, drones and helicopters appeared to shift
focus from suspected Palestinian rocket sites to the northern
Gaza frontier, where their bombs created incursion corridors by
clearing landmines or guerrilla gun nests.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s threat to reprise its Gaza invasion of four years ago if its air strikes against Hamas do not end rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave masks important differences between then and now.

Two days into the assault, the absence of the saturated aerial bombing seen at the start of the last Gaza war in 2008 suggested the Israelis were not yet carving safer access points for ground troops.

JERUSALEM, Nov 15 (Reuters) – Israel exchanged the fiercest
fire with Hamas in years after assassinating its military
mastermind and threatening a wider offensive in the Gaza Strip
to stem Palestinian rocket salvoes.

Launched on Wednesday during a deceptive lull in almost a
week of surging cross-border violence, Israel’s air assault had
an intensity recalling the outset of the 2008-09 Gaza war though
this time the Palestinian death toll of 10 was far lower.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are faltering against rebels, some of whom are dug in on the eastern foothills of the Golan Heights, Israel said on Wednesday.

The violence near the Israeli-occupied Golan has jarred the Jewish state, which this week twice shot back after stray Syrian fire hit its side – the old foes’ first armed engagement over the strategic plateau since 1973.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel fired a guided missile into Syria on Sunday in a potent “warning shot” after mortar fire from fighting between Syrian troops and rebels hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights for the second time in four days.

Israel Radio said it was the first direct engagement of the Syrian military on the Golan since the countries’ 1973 war. It highlighted international fears that Syria’s civil war could ignite wider regional conflict.