The
Lebanese army dismantled two rockets in southern Lebanon on Monday that security sources said were aimed at Israel, which has been launching air strikes on Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
The rockets were found in the town of Halta and were about 1 km from an Israeli military site on Mount Hermon. Both appeared to have been recently placed in the area, the security sources said.
This after 5 Palestinians were
reported wounded in confrontations with the Israeli army in the West Bank. An Islamic Jihad local commander was also killed on Monday in an Israeli air strike on a tower block that houses many international media, a source in the militant group said.
Locals initially thought the dead man was the owner of a computer store on the third storey of the city center building.
Britain's Sky News and Saudi-owned Al Arabiya Channel operate out of the same building, however, most journalists left their offices immediately after an initial strike on Sunday.
This as the exiled leader of the Palestinian group Hamas said on Monday that Palestinian weapons had caught Israel "off guard" and said Israel had failed to achieve its objectives in Gaza.
"The weapons of the resistance have caught the enemy off guard," Meshaal told a new conference in Cairo, speaking as Egypt says it could be close to securing a truce between the two sides.
Meshaal said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had requested a truce. "Whoever started the war must end it," Meshaal said. He called for Palestinian
unity saying that factions “must end their divisions.” Meshaal called on rights
groups to "expose" Israeli "crimes “against Gaza, especially
against children, civilians. He also requested that Egypt support Palestinians as much as possible but added that he does not want to transfer the
"burden" to Egypt.
"Israel should halt all its attacks against Gaza and lift the blockade of the Palestinian territory in exchange for a truce that he said the Israeli government was seeking.
"We are not against calm (a truce) ... but there must specific demands ... in summary that the Israeli thuggery and aggression stop ... and the siege on Gaza be lifted," he said in a news conference in Cairo.
"Egypt was asked by the Americans, European parties and from Israel directly to work to realize calm. They (Israel) attacked and they requested the calm because their calculations failed," he said.
Israel denied on Monday Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal's assertion that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanuyahu has requested a truce in the Gaza conflict.
"Hamas's comments about a ceasefire, alleging that Israel is begging for one, are about as accurate as its claims to have shot down an F-15 (warplane) or attacked the Knesset," a senior government official said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier made statements whereby he said that Israel was ready for a ground invasion.
"We would prefer to see a diplomatic solution that would guarantee the
peace for Israel's population in the south. If that is possible, then a
ground operation would no longer be required," the official told
Reuters.
"But if diplomacy fails, we may well have no alternative but to
send in ground forces."
With the “Pillar of Cloud” operation
implemented by the Israeli Army against Gaza entering the sixth day, exchange
of rockets continued on Monday between the Israeli and Palestinian sides.
In this context, a medical source told AFP that four people, including one
child were killed in an airstrike which targeted a house in al-Zaytoun Street
in Gaza on Sunday night, while 25 others were wounded.
In the morning, three Palestinians
were killed in another Israeli raid on Deir al-Balah. Another airstrike on al-Qarara, southern Gaza killed two Palestinians.
The Israeli air force also shelled the Police headquarters in Gaza city and
completely destroyed it. However, the Israeli Army
declared that missiles attacks launched from Gaza decreased by 40%.
Israeli forces also succeeded in interrupting Hamas' TV “Al-Aqsa”.
Sunday was the deadliest day in Gaza since the beginning of the aggression
were 29 people were killed, mostly children and women.
Positions:
Egypt's efforts to negotiate a truce between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza are ongoing and a deal to stop the fighting could be close, the Egyptian prime minister said on Monday.
"Negotiations are going on as we speak and I hope we will reach something soon that will stop this violence and counter violence," Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said in an interview in Cairo for the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.
"I think we are close, but the nature of this kind of negotiation, (means) it is very difficult to predict," he said.
In international positions,
China urged the parties in the conflict, mainly Israel to exercise “utmost restraint” in Gaza.
For his part, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuoglu will be visiting Gaza on Tuesday.
In the same context, Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr will head to Gaza on Tuesday alongside a delegation of Arab ministers to express solidarity with the Palestinian people, following Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian territory, a spokesman for the ministry said.
It is worth mentioning that Egypt is at the heart of efforts to broker a truce to end fighting between Israel and Palestinian militant groups.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel on Monday of carrying out "terrorist acts" in its bombardment of Gaza.
"Those who associate Islam with terrorism close their eyes in the face of mass killing of Muslims, turn their heads from the massacre of children in Gaza," Erdogan told a conference of the Eurasian Islamic Council in Istanbul.
"For this reason, I say that Israel is a terrorist state, and its acts are terrorist acts."
REUTERS/LBCI