Gaza crisis: Hamas aims missile at Jerusalem for first time

Hamas aimed a missile at Jerusalem for the first time on Friday night, as Israeli ministers and military chiefs convened to discuss a ground invasion of Gaza.

By Damien McElroy, Tel Aviv, Magdy Samaan in Rafah, Phoebe Greenwood in Gaza and Richard Spencer in Cairo

8:34PM GMT 16 Nov 2012

Daily Telegraph

The home-made "M75" missile landed in open ground in the West Bank, a short distance to the south-east of the Israeli capital.

It triggered air raid sirens and panic in the city for the first time since the Gulf War in 1991, but caused no casualties. An earlier missile likewise failed to hit Tel Aviv, Israel's commerical capital, landing harmlessly in the sea.

Hamas’s decision to target Israel’s two main centres of population – especially Jerusalem, holy to the region’s major religions — marked a significant escalation in the fighting.

Jerusalem is around 45 miles from Gaza and until recently was not thought to be in range of Hamas rockets.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, spoke to military leaders last night to discuss a ground offensive inside Gaza against the radical Islamist group. They will find it hard to back down in the face of public demands for action.

In further signs of preparation for a ground assault, Israeli armed forces yesterday sealed off major roads leading to the territory as tens of thousands of extra reservists were called up.

The Palestinian militant group rejected calls to scale down its rocket attacks however, despite the threat of escalation.

"We are sending a short and simple message," a spokesman, who called himself Abu Obeida, said. "There is no security for any Zionist on any single inch of Palestine and we plan more surprises."

Friday was marked by inflammatory strikes by both sides, despite a visit to Gaza by the Egyptian prime minister, Hisham Qandil, who is at the centre of such attempts as are being made to bring the violence to a halt.

Both sides had promised to hold fire for the three hours of his visit, but exchanges continued. One six-year-old boy who had been killed was brought into a Gaza hospital even as Mr Qandil visited.

Not long after he left the Gaza strip through the newly reopened Rafah crossing with Egypt, The Daily Telegraph witnessed Israeli missiles land close to the border.