Rockets from Gaza answered with air strikes as both sides remain dug in over conditions for a lasting truce.
The Israeli military has said it struck more than 30 targets through Friday night and into Saturday morning in the Gaza Strip as militant rocket fire continued towards Israel.
The renewed violence followed the collapse of a three-day truce aimed at bringing an end to the deadliest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas since the group seized control of Gaza in 2007.
Gaza militants resumed their rocket attacks on Friday against Israel, drawing a wave of retaliatory air strikes that killed at least five Palestinians. The fighting shattered a brief calm in the month-long war and dealt a blow to Egyptian-led efforts to secure a long-term ceasefire.
Both the rocket fire from Gaza and the Israel air strikes on Gaza have been of significantly lower intensity than at the height of the conflict, suggesting a mutual desire to avoid immediate escalation. The rockets being fired from Gaza were all short range, targeting towns close to Gaza.
Israel's military said it had hit 33 "terrorist targets" since midnight. These included several mosques and houses across the length of Gaza.
In four weeks of violence more than 1,900 Gazans have been killed. Sixty-seven people have been killed on the Israeli side, including three civilians.
Talks in Cairo on Friday failed to cut the renewed hostilities short. Israel resumed its air strikes after Islamist groups refused to extend a ceasefire that lapsed on Friday morning and fired dozens of rockets into Israel.
Later, Israel said it was withdrawing its representatives from the talks, declaring it would not negotiate "under fire".
Throughout Friday there were reports of Israeli air strikes in the north and east of Gaza and several explosions in Gaza City.
Five Palestinians were killed and at least 31 others wounded in Israeli air strikes on Friday, said Gaza health officials. Among the dead was a 10-year-old boy.
Sami al-Zohri, the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, told the Guardian that Hamas was "open to all options".
"We want a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The problems are on the Israeli side. They have rejected all our demands," al-Zohri said.
He added that there had been no discussions with the Egyptians over opening the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt, where movement has been tightly restricted in recent years.
In Israel, a soldier and a civilian were injured. At least one rocket appeared to have fallen short, landing in Gaza itself.
Azzam al-Ahmed, the head of the Palestinian negotiating team in Cairo, which contains members of all the major Palestinian factions, said the team wanted to continue the talks. "We will continue through our Egyptian brothers to negotiate, to reach a final agreement that would return the rights [of the Palestinians]," al-Ahmed said.
"We've notified the Egyptians that we're here, whether it's a religious holiday for us or not [Friday is a day of prayer in the Muslim world] because our religion does not prevent us from working to stop the bloodshed. This is our priority," he told the Guardian, speaking at a hotel on the edge of Cairo where the delegation has stayed for the past week.
Al-Ahmed, a member of Fatah, Hamas's long-term rival, blamed the breakdown of negotiations on Israel, whose delegation he said had never given "specific and clear answers" to their demands, and who only communicated with the Palestinians through mediators in Egyptian intelligence.
However the Egyptian foreign ministry later released a statement saying that "there was agreement on the majority of points but there remain a few very limited issues without a final decision".
The Palestinian delegation in Cairo have demanded an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza must be lifted and about 100 prisoners held by Israel freed to secure a further truce. Israel insists that Hamas must disarm, which officials from the Palestinian group said was "inconceivable".
On Friday morning Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, ordered Israel's military "to retaliate forcefully to the Hamas breach of the ceasefire", an official said in a statement. However the Israeli strikes were significantly less intense than in the days before the ceasefire.
The army confirmed it had "targeted terror sites across the Gaza Strip," but that no Israeli soldiers had entered the Palestinian territory.
In the occupied West Bank 12 protesters were reported to have been injured in demonstrations.
It is unclear whether it was Hamas or other smaller factions in Gaza, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that fired the rockets at Israel during Friday.
In Gaza tens of thousands of people who had returned to their homes during the 72-hour ceasefire rushed back to the United Nations-run shelters where many have been staying since the war began more than four weeks ago.
Up to 30% of Gaza's 1.8 million people have been displaced by the recent fighting and an estimated 65,000 people are now homeless.
At one school in Gaza City, one of 90 which have been designated shelters during the conflict, 800 people who had left in recent days returned this morning as news of the renewed fighting broke.
One was Nidal Sultan, 21, who had driven with six members of his family from the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
"We were in the school on the first day of the ceasefire and came back this morning. There were strikes and shelling in the last hour or so. It's not safe, so we have to come to the school however bad it is. We will stay now until the war stops," Sultan said, as he unpacked blankets, a stove and clothes from a car.
The school is now holding more displaced people than before the ceasefire and was turning families away, United Nations worker Amal Zaqqout said.
"We are very, very crowded. We have people living in corridors. Thank God we have not had any transmissable diseases but that is definitely a concern now," Zaqqout said.
On Friday night the UN said more than 220,000 people were staying in its shelters. In one, a school in Beit Lahiya, around a thousand people were sleeping outside as the 40 classrooms were already full.
In Israel the army banned all gatherings larger than 500 people within 25 miles (40km) of Gaza and said kindergarten and summer camps could only operate if there was a bomb shelter in the immediate vicinity.
"This is very frustrating, we thought it would be over," said Dov Hartuv, who has lived for decades in Nahal Oz kibbutz just east of the border with Gaza.
"This might just be for 12 or 24 hours before they return to the negotiating table. Meanwhile it ruined all our plans and frustrated all of us, especially the families with young children," he told AFP.
Most people in Gaza blamed Israel for the renewal of hostilities and said they supported the demands made by the Palestinian delegation in Cairo during difficult indirect negotiations brokered by the Egyptians in recent days. Chief among those has been the lifting of the eight-year blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt.
"The people's demands are humanitarian. Even if the resistance agreed to drop the demands, the people would not agree. We are at the point where life or death is the same thing for us," said Mohamed Eid, 40, who has been living in the grounds of the main hospital in Gaza since his house was destroyed in fierce fighting in the east of the city 15 days ago.
However Faiza Abu Khalil, 37, said she was "very worried and very scared" and still hoped for peace.
Abu Khalil had returned to Gaza from her home near Beit Lahiya when it appeared the ceasefire would not hold.
At the al'Huda mosque on al'Rasheed Street in Gaza City, the congregation gathered for Friday prayers were told by a cleric that "Gaza is a blessed place. Our martyrs have been chosen by God because they are the closest to him. Their blood will not be wasted. The people of Gaza are steadfast in their support of the resistance,."
A 38-year-old teacher, who gave his name as Abu Abdullah, said that he supported the decision of Palestinian leaders to resume hostilities.
"We are suffering but we have made up our minds. Without satisfying our demands, there can be no peace," he said.
"Ceasefire, ceasefire, it doesn't make any difference. You cannot trust Israel. We are waiting for our team in Cairo to get us some positive improvement but if there is nothing we can continue the fight," said Nihad Khamis, a 40-year-old businessman.
An official from one minor group in Gaza, the Mujahideen Faction, told the Guardian that further "sacrifices" from the Palestinian people would lead to the end of the blockade.
"The people of Gaza are not willing to live under siege," Ziad Abu Oda said.
More than 1,800 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 10,000 injured, the majority civilians, in the latest of three wars fought between Hamas and Israel since 2008.
Three civilians have been killed by rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and 64 soldiers during the phase of the ongoing Operation Protective Edge which saw Israeli troops push up to two miles into Gaza. All troops have now withdrawn, Israeli officials said.
"We will continue to strike Hamas, its infrastructure, its operatives and restore security for the State of Israel," said Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.
More than 3,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel in recent weeks. Most of those headed for inhabited areas were shot down. A surge in rockets fired from Gaza prompted Israel to launch air strikes almost a month ago.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
 |
| Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. Photograph: Majdi Fathi/ Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Corbis |
The renewed violence followed the collapse of a three-day truce aimed at bringing an end to the deadliest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas since the group seized control of Gaza in 2007.
Gaza militants resumed their rocket attacks on Friday against Israel, drawing a wave of retaliatory air strikes that killed at least five Palestinians. The fighting shattered a brief calm in the month-long war and dealt a blow to Egyptian-led efforts to secure a long-term ceasefire.
Both the rocket fire from Gaza and the Israel air strikes on Gaza have been of significantly lower intensity than at the height of the conflict, suggesting a mutual desire to avoid immediate escalation. The rockets being fired from Gaza were all short range, targeting towns close to Gaza.
Israel's military said it had hit 33 "terrorist targets" since midnight. These included several mosques and houses across the length of Gaza.
In four weeks of violence more than 1,900 Gazans have been killed. Sixty-seven people have been killed on the Israeli side, including three civilians.
Talks in Cairo on Friday failed to cut the renewed hostilities short. Israel resumed its air strikes after Islamist groups refused to extend a ceasefire that lapsed on Friday morning and fired dozens of rockets into Israel.
Later, Israel said it was withdrawing its representatives from the talks, declaring it would not negotiate "under fire".
Throughout Friday there were reports of Israeli air strikes in the north and east of Gaza and several explosions in Gaza City.
Five Palestinians were killed and at least 31 others wounded in Israeli air strikes on Friday, said Gaza health officials. Among the dead was a 10-year-old boy.
Sami al-Zohri, the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, told the Guardian that Hamas was "open to all options".
"We want a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The problems are on the Israeli side. They have rejected all our demands," al-Zohri said.
He added that there had been no discussions with the Egyptians over opening the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt, where movement has been tightly restricted in recent years.
In Israel, a soldier and a civilian were injured. At least one rocket appeared to have fallen short, landing in Gaza itself.
Azzam al-Ahmed, the head of the Palestinian negotiating team in Cairo, which contains members of all the major Palestinian factions, said the team wanted to continue the talks. "We will continue through our Egyptian brothers to negotiate, to reach a final agreement that would return the rights [of the Palestinians]," al-Ahmed said.
"We've notified the Egyptians that we're here, whether it's a religious holiday for us or not [Friday is a day of prayer in the Muslim world] because our religion does not prevent us from working to stop the bloodshed. This is our priority," he told the Guardian, speaking at a hotel on the edge of Cairo where the delegation has stayed for the past week.
Al-Ahmed, a member of Fatah, Hamas's long-term rival, blamed the breakdown of negotiations on Israel, whose delegation he said had never given "specific and clear answers" to their demands, and who only communicated with the Palestinians through mediators in Egyptian intelligence.
However the Egyptian foreign ministry later released a statement saying that "there was agreement on the majority of points but there remain a few very limited issues without a final decision".
The Palestinian delegation in Cairo have demanded an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza must be lifted and about 100 prisoners held by Israel freed to secure a further truce. Israel insists that Hamas must disarm, which officials from the Palestinian group said was "inconceivable".
On Friday morning Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, ordered Israel's military "to retaliate forcefully to the Hamas breach of the ceasefire", an official said in a statement. However the Israeli strikes were significantly less intense than in the days before the ceasefire.
The army confirmed it had "targeted terror sites across the Gaza Strip," but that no Israeli soldiers had entered the Palestinian territory.
In the occupied West Bank 12 protesters were reported to have been injured in demonstrations.
It is unclear whether it was Hamas or other smaller factions in Gaza, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that fired the rockets at Israel during Friday.
In Gaza tens of thousands of people who had returned to their homes during the 72-hour ceasefire rushed back to the United Nations-run shelters where many have been staying since the war began more than four weeks ago.
Up to 30% of Gaza's 1.8 million people have been displaced by the recent fighting and an estimated 65,000 people are now homeless.
At one school in Gaza City, one of 90 which have been designated shelters during the conflict, 800 people who had left in recent days returned this morning as news of the renewed fighting broke.
One was Nidal Sultan, 21, who had driven with six members of his family from the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
"We were in the school on the first day of the ceasefire and came back this morning. There were strikes and shelling in the last hour or so. It's not safe, so we have to come to the school however bad it is. We will stay now until the war stops," Sultan said, as he unpacked blankets, a stove and clothes from a car.
The school is now holding more displaced people than before the ceasefire and was turning families away, United Nations worker Amal Zaqqout said.
"We are very, very crowded. We have people living in corridors. Thank God we have not had any transmissable diseases but that is definitely a concern now," Zaqqout said.
On Friday night the UN said more than 220,000 people were staying in its shelters. In one, a school in Beit Lahiya, around a thousand people were sleeping outside as the 40 classrooms were already full.
In Israel the army banned all gatherings larger than 500 people within 25 miles (40km) of Gaza and said kindergarten and summer camps could only operate if there was a bomb shelter in the immediate vicinity.
"This is very frustrating, we thought it would be over," said Dov Hartuv, who has lived for decades in Nahal Oz kibbutz just east of the border with Gaza.
"This might just be for 12 or 24 hours before they return to the negotiating table. Meanwhile it ruined all our plans and frustrated all of us, especially the families with young children," he told AFP.
Most people in Gaza blamed Israel for the renewal of hostilities and said they supported the demands made by the Palestinian delegation in Cairo during difficult indirect negotiations brokered by the Egyptians in recent days. Chief among those has been the lifting of the eight-year blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt.
"The people's demands are humanitarian. Even if the resistance agreed to drop the demands, the people would not agree. We are at the point where life or death is the same thing for us," said Mohamed Eid, 40, who has been living in the grounds of the main hospital in Gaza since his house was destroyed in fierce fighting in the east of the city 15 days ago.
However Faiza Abu Khalil, 37, said she was "very worried and very scared" and still hoped for peace.
Abu Khalil had returned to Gaza from her home near Beit Lahiya when it appeared the ceasefire would not hold.
At the al'Huda mosque on al'Rasheed Street in Gaza City, the congregation gathered for Friday prayers were told by a cleric that "Gaza is a blessed place. Our martyrs have been chosen by God because they are the closest to him. Their blood will not be wasted. The people of Gaza are steadfast in their support of the resistance,."
A 38-year-old teacher, who gave his name as Abu Abdullah, said that he supported the decision of Palestinian leaders to resume hostilities.
"We are suffering but we have made up our minds. Without satisfying our demands, there can be no peace," he said.
"Ceasefire, ceasefire, it doesn't make any difference. You cannot trust Israel. We are waiting for our team in Cairo to get us some positive improvement but if there is nothing we can continue the fight," said Nihad Khamis, a 40-year-old businessman.
An official from one minor group in Gaza, the Mujahideen Faction, told the Guardian that further "sacrifices" from the Palestinian people would lead to the end of the blockade.
"The people of Gaza are not willing to live under siege," Ziad Abu Oda said.
More than 1,800 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 10,000 injured, the majority civilians, in the latest of three wars fought between Hamas and Israel since 2008.
Three civilians have been killed by rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and 64 soldiers during the phase of the ongoing Operation Protective Edge which saw Israeli troops push up to two miles into Gaza. All troops have now withdrawn, Israeli officials said.
"We will continue to strike Hamas, its infrastructure, its operatives and restore security for the State of Israel," said Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.
More than 3,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel in recent weeks. Most of those headed for inhabited areas were shot down. A surge in rockets fired from Gaza prompted Israel to launch air strikes almost a month ago.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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