Gaza conflict: Israel mobilises troops as rockets hit Tel Aviv

?This escalation will exact a price that the other side will have to pay,? Mr Barak warned last night in the wake of the rocket attacks.

Tel Aviv had until recently been thought to be out of missile range for Gaza?s militant groups.

Both were claimed by Islamic Jihad, a more radical group separate from Hamas, which has political control over Gaza. But Israeli leaders gave no sign of recognising that distinction, regarding any attack on its territory as a legitimate cause for retaliation.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was buoyed by support from Western leaders including President Barack Obama and the foreign secretary, William Hague.

He gave an unrepentant defence of the decision to launch Wednesday and Thursday?s attacks on Gaza, which killed Hamas?s military leader Ahmed al-Jaabari.

?Israel will continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people,? he said. Officials last night however, said that no decision had yet been made to enter Gaza.

The risks to wider regional security, particularly in light of the Arab Spring revolutions, were emphasised by an angry response in Egypt to Israel?s attack.

Egypt?s prime minister, Hisham Qandil, announced he would lead a delegation to Gaza on Friday, the highest profile visit by an Egyptian leader since the Muslim Brotherhood took power earlier this year.

Egypt brokered an informal truce between Hamas and Israel on Monday, which Israel?s attack two days later brought to an end.

But Hamas, backed also by other Arab nations including the key western ally of Qatar, said it rejected all talk of a truce ?at this time?.

So far, 16 Palestinians, including both militants and civilian men, women and children, have been killed by Israeli air strikes, while three Israeli civilians died when a rocket fired from Gaza hit their apartment block in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi yesterday morning.

As plumes of smoke rose above Gaza and southern Israel, the United States showed its alarm that a new Middle East war could break out even as a newly re-elected President Barack Obama deals with crises over Iran, Syria and other nations engulfed in the Arab Spring revolutions.

Last night he called on Egypt, whose new Muslim Brotherhood leaders he recently called neither a friend nor an enemy, to help. ?We ask Egypt to use its influence in the region to help de-escalate the situation,? a state department spokesman said.

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/571194/s/25a0b2ca/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cworldnews0Cmiddleeast0Cisrael0C96815620CGaza0Econflict0EIsrael0Emobilises0Etroops0Eas0Erockets0Ehit0ETel0EAviv0Bhtml/story01.htm

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