War looms after Hamas rocket killes 3 Israelis (13 Palestinians dead earlier) [View All]

[No Elephants]

War looms after Hamas rocket killes 3 Israelis

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA | Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:16am EST

(Reuters) - A Hamas rocket killed three Israelis north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, drawing the first blood from Israel as the Palestinian death toll rose to 13 and a military showdown lurched closer to all-out war with an invasion of the enclave.

Israeli warplanes bombed targets in and around Gaza city, where tall buildings trembled. Plumes of smoke and dust furled into a sky laced with the vapor trails of outgoing rockets.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in a televised address to the nation that Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip were "unacceptable" and would lead to instability in the region.

In a telephone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama, Mursi said he had discussed "ways to reach calm and end the aggression".

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The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed it had fired a one-ton, Iranian-made Fajr 5 rocket at Tel Aviv in what would be a major escalation, but there was no reported impact in the Israeli metropolis 50 km (30 miles) north of the enclave.

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The Israeli army said 156 targets were hit in Gaza, 126 of them rocket launchers. It said 200 rockets had struck Israel since the start of the operation, 135 of them since midnight.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/15/us-palestinians-israel-hamas-idUSBRE8AD0WP20121115