TEL AVIV/GAZA (Reuters) – Gaza’s Hamas movement wanted a showdown with Israel because its leaders are high on something called the Arab Spring and competing to become martyrs to the Palestinian cause.

Or, from another perspective, cynical Israeli politicians think a Gaza offensive will be a walkover that will assure re-election in January and at the same time provide a death-blow to Palestinian statehood moves at the United Nations.

GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Israeli aircraft bombed
Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the
prime minister’s office, after Israel’s cabinet authorised the
mobilisation of up to 75,000 reservists, preparing for a
possible ground invasion.

Israeli planes shattered the office building of Prime
Minister Ismail Haniyeh – where he had met on Friday with the
Egyptian prime minister – and struck the Interior Ministry.

GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Israeli aircraft pounded
Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the
prime minister’s office, after Israel’s cabinet authorised the
mobilisation of up to 75,000 reservists, preparing for a
possible ground invasion.

Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said
Israeli planes bombed the office building of Prime Minister
Ismail Haniyeh – where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian
prime minister – and struck a police headquarters.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet authorised the mobilisation of up to 75,000 reservists late on Friday, preparing the ground for a possible Gaza invasion after Palestinians fired a rocket toward Jerusalem for the first time in decades.

Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial centre, also came under rocket attack for the second straight day, in defiance of an Israeli air offensive that began on Wednesday with the declared aim of deterring Hamas from launching cross-border attacks that have plagued southern Israel for years.

GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet
authorised the mobilisation of up to 75,000 reservists late on
Friday, preparing the ground for a possible Gaza invasion after
Palestinians fired a rocket toward Jerusalem for the first time
in decades.

Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial centre, also came under rocket
attack for the second straight day, in defiance of an Israeli
air offensive that began on Wednesday with the declared aim of
deterring Hamas from launching cross-border attacks that have
plagued southern Israel for years.

GAZA, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Palestinian militants nearly hit
Jerusalem with a rocket for the first time in decades on Friday
and fired at Tel Aviv for a second day, in a stinging challenge
to Israel’s Gaza offensive after an Egyptian bid to broker a
truce.

The attacks came just hours after Egypt’s prime minister,
denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression, visited the
Gaza Strip and said Cairo was prepared to mediate.

GAZA, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Egypt tried to open a tiny window
to emergency peace diplomacy in Gaza on Friday, but hopes for
even a brief ceasefire while its prime minister was inside the
bombarded enclave to talk to leaders of the Islamist Hamas
movement were immediately dashed.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil visited the Gaza Strip
officially to show solidarity with the Palestinian people after
two days of relentless attacks by Israeli warplanes determined
to end militant rocket fire at Israel.

GAZA, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Egypt opened a tiny window to
emergency peace diplomacy in Gaza on Friday, but hopes for even
a brief ceasefire while its prime minister was inside the
bombarded enclave to talk to leaders of the Islamist Hamas
movement were immediately dashed.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil arrived in the Gaza Strip on
Friday officially to show solidarity with the Palestinian people
after two days of relentless attacks by Israeli warplanes
determined to end militant rocket fire at Israel.

GAZA, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Egypt’s prime minister prepared to
visit the Gaza Strip on Friday in an unprecedented display of
solidarity with Hamas militants embroiled in a new escalation of
conflict with Israel that risks spiralling into all-out war.

Two rockets from Gaza crashed near Tel Aviv in the first
such attack on Israel’s commercial capital for 20 years. One
fell into the Mediterranean Sea and the other in an uninhabited
part of one of the Tel Aviv suburbs south of the city.

GAZA, Nov 15 (Reuters) – Two rockets fired from the Gaza
Strip targeted Tel Aviv on Thursday in the first attack on
Israel’s commercial capital in 20 years, raising the stakes in a
showdown between Israel and the Palestinians that is moving
towards all-out war.

Earlier, a Hamas rocket killed three Israelis north of the
Gaza Strip, drawing the first blood from Israel as the
Palestinian death toll rose to 16, five of them children.