US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was flying to Israel today in an attempt to avoid an escalation of the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Mrs Clinton will arrive in Jerusalem tonight amid reports that Israel has put plans for a ground invasion of Gaza “on hold” to give peace talks brokered by Egypt a chance.
Israel — which has tens of thousands of troops massed along the border — has set a deadline of Thursday for the negotiations to succeed.
Egypt is trying to broker a truce between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement. An Egyptian intelligence source said “there is still no breakthrough and Egypt is working to find middle ground”.
As diplomats sought to end the conflict, the violence in Gaza and southern Israel continued.
Israel launched scores of air strikes on Gaza overnight, targeting ammunition stores and the headquarters of the National Islamic Bank. Hamas militants in turn fired dozens of rockets into southern Israeli cities this morning.
An Israel Defence Forces spokesman said that an Israeli soldier was injured during a rocket attack in the south.
Loud explosions were reported in Gaza this morning following a number of reported fatalities in the past 12 hours. More than 110 Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed so far in the conflict.
Mrs Clinton will meet Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu tomorrow morning and will then visit the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank before travelling to Egypt.
Mr Netanyahu and his ministers debated their next moves in a meeting that lasted into the early hours today.
“Before deciding on a ground invasion, the prime minister intends to exhaust the diplomatic move in order to see if a long-term ceasefire can be achieved,” a senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said after the meeting.
Israeli officials said that 29 rockets in total were today fired from Gaza and three of them got through Israel’s Iron Dome interception system.
One landed on a parked bus in Beersheba and a house in Ofakim but there were no casualties.
Hamas health ministry officials said a father and his two sons — thought to be aged two and four — were killed overnight during Israeli air strikes.
A commander of the Islamic Jihad militant group was killed yesterday in a bombing raid on a Gaza City tower block housing media organisations.
A security guard at the US embassy in Tel Aviv has been stabbed in the leg by an intruder. The attacker, who according to reports was of Israeli origin, was armed with a knife and an axe. A police spokesman said the assailant was arrested after being wounded by gunfire. He said the attack was not likely to have been politically motivated.
