IAF pilots continued to bombard Hamas targets in Gaza on Tuesday morning as Operation Cast Lead entered its fourth day.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak expanded the "special situation" status to all southern communities within a 30-kilometer radius of Gaza, allowing Home Front Command to determine openings and closings of schools, factories and other establishments and events.
Among the cities included on the list, for the first time, was the port city of Ashdod, which was hit by missiles which killed an Israeli woman on Monday evening, as well as Ashkelon, where a construction worker was killed in a missile attack earlier that day. Ashdod is Israel's fifth largest city with over 200,000 residents. Other towns and cities may be added to the list in the coming days.
A Katyusha rocket also exploded in Ashkelon late Monday night, narrowly missing a gas station at a major intersection in the port city. The site of the blast also was very close to a police station. The attack knocked out electricity and forced an abrupt halt to wedding and bar mitzvah celebrations that were taking place in the area.
Preparations Continue for Ground Offensive
Israel continues to prepare for an eventual ground offensive, although the order to move in to Gaza has not yet been given.
Tanks and half-tracks slowly made their way down the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway throughout the day on Monday as officials authorized the call-up of 6,500 reservists. Combat and armored forces have been massing near the security barrier with Gaza, and the area along the border on Monday was declared a closed military zone.
Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai announced the IDF "has made preparations for long weeks of action," and Home Front Command has continued to update media outlets in all major languages with instructions to the general public.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni reiterated in an interview with Arab news outlet Al-Jazeera that the military offensive was aimed at the Hamas terrorist organization, and not Arab residents of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. She also urged civilians to flee to safety and take refuge in areas away from potential IDF targets – that is, places where Hamas might be storing bombs and other ordnance.
"We tried to avoid this," she told the Arab news outlet. "You know that Israel accepted the truce that was initiated by the Egyptians in order to create peace and quiet. We adopted the truce. What have we got in return? We got in return daily attacks, we got in return smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip with long-range [capabilities]," she said.
If launched, a ground operation could be carried out in a number of different ways, including lightning in-and-out strikes, as opposed to a straight invasion, said military officials.
Israel is committed to continuing the attack until Gaza terrorist groups are willing to surrender, and end rocket and mortar attacks on Jewish communities in the south, permanently. Hamas, which rules Gaza, has announced it will continue the fight, and rocket and mortar attacks on Israel indeed continued throughout the night and into Tuesday morning.
In addition to the two civilian casualties on Monday, an IDF soldier was killed, and five soldiers wounded, one seriously, in a mortar attack on an army base near the Nahal Oz Crossing into Gaza late Monday night. This was the first fatal attack on an IDF base since the current offensive began.