HAS A NEW GAZA WAR STARTED? SEEMS SO...

THESE DUELING HEADLINES SEEM TO INDICATE THAT ESCALATION IS LIKELY TO CONTINUE UNTIL FULL-SCALE WAR BREAKS OUT...

Hamas: We'll broaden attacks if IDF strikes continue

Hamas said on Saturday it would escalate it attacks against Israel to include a wider range of targets deeper into Israeli territory if the IDF failed to halt its aerial assaults on the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri blamed Israel for an escalation in violence. "If the Israeli escalation continues, amid international silence and complicity, the reactions by resistance factions will broaden," he told Reuters, saying such actions would be necessary to protect Palestinians in Gaza.

IDF vows to keep up air strikes as 120 rockets hit South

Over 120 rockets and mortar shells slammed into Israel over the weekend as the IDF hammered the Gaza Strip and threatened to open a large ground offensive to stop the rocket attacks.

Five Israelis were reportedly wounded when scrambling to enter bomb shelters as rockets were being fired.

Throughout the day, a number of messages were relayed to Israel by various mediators with an offer of a cease-fire from Hamas’s political echelon in the Gaza Strip.

Defense officials said Hamas appeared to be split and that while its Izzadin Kassam military wing, led by Ahmed Jabari, was continuing to attack Israel, this was being done against the position of the political echelon led by Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

The round of violence began on Thursday when Gazans fired an anti-tank missile at a school bus, critically wounding a 16- year-old boy and lightly injuring the driver. Hamas rocket and mortar attacks continued throughout Friday and Saturday in Beersheba, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ofakim, Sderot and other Gaza-belt communities.

The Iron Dome counter-rocket defense system intercepted 10 Katyusha and Kassam rockets over the weekend that were fired in the direction of Ashkelon and Beersheba, where the two batteries are deployed.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak called the successful interception by the missile defense system “an extraordinary achievement for the IDF.”

IF THEY WANT WAR, THEN I SAY WE GIVE IT TO THEM IN SPADES.