The Hamas-linked Health Ministry last night reported that as many as 16 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Monday.
Some of the officials admitted that among the dead were nine members of a single family, and seven others belonged to a different family, all those people who were killed in the second night attack.
This attack was ordered in retaliation to a series of rocket attacks carried out by Hamas near Kerem Shalom in Southern Israel. These attacks killed three soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces, and injured 11 others, including soldiers from the 931 Battalion and a member of the Shaked Battalion.
The war cabinet is likely to convene tomorrow to decide whether the incursion of the ground forces in the Rafah region is to be used or not, the PMO sources informed IANS. The sources added that Yoav Gallant and Minister without portfolio Benny Gantz are going to attend the session.
The recent rounds of peace negotiations in Cairo have focused on the fact that Israel is adamantly refusing to agree to a swap deal unless its 33 citizens who are held by Hamas in captivity are released. On the other hand, Hamas is demanding the release of 600 Palestinian prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons.
The tragic game of cat and mouse, initiated by Hamas by attacking the Kerem Shalom crossing and costing the lives of three IDF soldiers, is going to put a dejected shadow over the peace talks underway in Cairo.
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