GAZA (Reuters) – Israel launched a major offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday, killing the military commander of Hamas in an air strike and threatening an invasion of the enclave that the Islamist group vowed would “open the gates of hell”.

The onslaught shattered hopes that a truce mediated on Tuesday by Egypt could pull the two sides back from the brink of war after five days of escalating Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli strikes at militant targets.

GAZA (Reuters) – Ahmed Al-Jaabari, the Hamas military chief assassinated by Israel in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, knew his days were numbered from the moment that he agreed to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the hostage whose capture he organized.

“Jaabari was living like a martyr in absentia, a martyr in waiting,” an aide to the late commander told Reuters.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel killed the military commander of the Islamist group Hamas in a missile strike on the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and launched air raids across the enclave, pushing the two sides to the brink of a new war.

The attacks marked the biggest escalation between Israel and Gaza militants since a 2008-2009 conflict and came despite signs on Tuesday that neighboring Egypt had managed to broker a truce in the enclave after a five day surge of violence.

TEL AVIV/GAZA (Reuters) – Israel and the Palestinians stepped back from the brink of a new war in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, sending signals to each other via Egypt that they would hold their fire unless attacked, after five days of mounting violence.

The tacit truce arrested an escalation to all-out fighting, but both sides remain armed and primed for another round in the unresolved conflict that has festered since Hamas Islamist militants took over the enclave in 2007.

JERUSALEM/GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian militants indicated they were ready for a truce with Israel on Monday to defuse a growing crisis after four days of rocket strikes from the Gaza Strip into the south of the Jewish state.

There was no immediate response from Israel which has warned it is ready to ramp up its air strikes and shelling if the rockets do not cease.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said it was poised to escalate attacks on the Gaza Strip on Sunday following a surge of rocket and mortar salvoes by Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

A missile strike wounded four Israeli troops on jeep patrol along the Gaza boundary on Saturday, triggering army shelling that killed four Palestinian civilians and, in turn, dozens of short-range rocket launches out of Gaza that paralysed Israel’s southern border towns.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said it was poised to escalate attacks on the Gaza Strip on Sunday following a surge of rocket and mortar salvoes by Hamas and other factions in the Palestinian enclave.

A missile strike wounded four Israeli troops on jeep patrol along the Gaza boundary on Saturday, triggering army shelling that killed four Palestinian civilians and, in turn, dozens of short-range rocket launches out of Gaza that paralyzed Israel’s southern border towns.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli tank fire killed four Palestinians and wounded 25 in the Gaza Strip on Saturday after an anti-tank missile hit an Israeli army jeep wounding four soldiers, and Palestinian fighters fired rockets into southern Israel in a new flare-up of fighting.

In a major clash that carried the risk of escalation, Palestinian militants vowed to take revenge for the deaths of civilians and Israel warned residents of communities near the Gaza border to stay within 15 seconds of their blast shelters.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli tank shells killed at least four Palestinians and wounded 25 in the Gaza Strip on Saturday after an apparent attack on an Israeli army patrol in the border area, Palestinian medics and local witnesses said.

The casualty toll was one of the highest in a single incident in Gaza in recent months. Residents said a crowded mourning tent in the Shijaia neighborhood near Gaza City was full of people paying respects to a bereaved family man when a shell struck.

GAZA STRIP (Reuters) – One of 70-odd rockets fired from Gaza into Israel this week hit a chicken coop, critically wounding two Thai migrant workers, innocent bystanders in a deadly game of brinkmanship.

If it had killed children on the Israeli farm they work for, Israel and Gaza would probably be at war right now.