Tel Aviv bomb suspect surrounded by Israeli security forces.
Photograph by Sapir Barsano
After high hopes of a ceasefire last night appear to have come to nothing, the fighting between Israel and Hamas has intensified further with a bomb set off on a bus in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital. The fighting also continues in Gaza, with Hamas firing more rockets into Israel and Israel using drones and aircraft to bombard key Hamas buildings and compounds.
A statement made through an anonymous Gaza City mosque loudspeaker says that Al Qassam was behind the Tel Aviv bombing, with their official twitter account stating:
http://twitter.com/AlqassamBrigade/status/271215035777445889
http://twitter.com/AlqassamBrigade/status/271215855923249153
Hamas has congratulated the bombers and described it as a “natural result of Israeli aggression”, and did say within hours of the assassination of Hamas military chief Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari, which ignited the current violence, that the response for this act would not just be rockets.
Peace talks are continuing in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Cairo, but the progress of any such deal has been slow, with both sides getting ever further apart in their aims as Israel continues the blockade and bombing of Gaza, whilst Palestinian militants continue to breach Israeli security and attack locations well into the Israeli interior.