MIDDLE EAST:ISRAEL IS under growing pressure to talk directly to the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas, which fired a barrage of rockets from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel yesterday, killing a student. Last night Israeli military aircraft bombed the Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza city, according to a Hamas official. The blast killed a six-month-old baby and wounded at least 14 other people, hospital officials said.
The strike followed the publication of a new poll showing 64 per cent of Israelis want their government to negotiate with Hamas to broker a ceasefire and secure the release of a soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was captured in 2006.
A Tel Aviv University professor, Camil Fuchs, who supervised the survey for Ha'aretz newspaper, said the results showed that Israelis were fed up with the conflict. "They're tired, they want a normal life," Mr Fuchs said.
For the past two months, militants in Gaza have fired about 50 rockets a week but Hamas sharply escalated its attack yesterday, launching 26 rockets at the southern town of Sderot in less than two hours, according to the Israel defence force. Hamas fired the salvo after Israel's air force killed five of the group's rocket launchers, including two key operators, and wounded several others.
Israel kills militants in the Gaza Strip almost daily. The Palestinian rockets are notoriously inaccurate but yesterday they struck a 30-year-old Israeli student sitting in his car in Sderot. Another student was wounded, as was a 10-year-old boy on Tuesday.
An elderly Palestinian man was killed in northern Gaza when the Israelis returned fire, a Palestinian source said.
The Israeli government refuses to talk directly to Hamas because it will not recognise Israel's right to exist or previous peace agreements. However, it has been talking indirectly to Hamas via Egypt, to free Shalit and possibly about securing a lull in the attacks.
But now it is under pressure to talk directly with Hamas, which has also refused direct talks.
The head of Israel's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre, Reuven Ehrlich, said the poll reflected a pragmatic streak in Israelis. "I don't think the public poll refers to a change in policy," Ehrlich said.
However, an analyst with Israel's Institute for Counter Terrorism, Shalom Harari, said Israel's strategy was working. "The biggest pressure on Hamas is how to deal with the [ Israel army] killing its activists."