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Smoke rises after rockets were fired from near Gaza City. AFP/Getty Images
Israel threatened to broaden its offensive against Hamas after the Islamists rejected a truce, and the army warned tens of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza to clear out by Wednesday morning.
Despite the continued fighting, the White House called a cease-fire proposed by Egypt on Monday a "live option" and urged Hamas to accept the terms and stop firing rockets from Gaza into Israel.
"Hamas chose to continue the battle and it will pay a price for that decision," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Tuesday as the conflict entered its second week. "When there is no cease-fire, our answer is fire.''
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Before the truce proposal emerged, Israel had been threatening a ground invasion of Gaza, massing troops and equipment on its southern border with the Palestinian territory. On Sunday, Israel similarly warned residents of Beit Lahiya, a town of about 70,000 in northern Gaza, to clear out. More than 17,000 fled their homes, many to United Nations shelters.
The Israeli military said late Tuesday night that it was telephoning residents of northern Gaza to warn them to evacuate homes "for their own safety."' A spokeswoman said they had warned residents of Beit Lahiya and the neighborhoods of Shajaiyeh and Zeitoun.
She wouldn't say exactly what the army planned, or how many residents were being warned. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that some 100,000 automated calls went out to Gaza.
An Israeli was killed Tuesday by a Palestinian rocket, the first death on the Israeli side in an eight-day conflict that has left at least 194 Palestinians dead, according to the Gaza health ministry. The man, a civilian, was hit by shrapnel from a rocket near the Erez border crossing between Israel and Gaza, the military said.
Gaza residents said most of Beit Lahiya had already emptied out even before the latest warnings. But many residents in other parts of northern Gaza have decided to stay. Residents were told to clear out by 8 a.m. local time Wednesday.
Mohammed Arafah AbuHaloob, an 80-year-old resident of Beit Lahiya, had evacuated to Gaza City once already after Israelis threatened to strike the town. When no attack came, he returned home. On Tuesday night, he received two automated calls telling him to leave immediately and he fled to Gaza City with only a plastic bag of medication, he said.
Israel has said the majority of rockets launched from Gaza come from the north.
Israel's security cabinet decided Tuesday morning to suspend airstrikes on Gaza in line with the cease-fire proposal. There was a lull starting at about 9 a.m. But Gaza militants fired 47 rockets during the suspension, according to Israel, which then started up strikes again.
Hamas rejected the cease-fire, saying it wasn't consulted by Egypt first and insisting that its various demands be addressed in any agreement. Israel said that from 9 a.m. on, Palestinians launched about 142 rockets from Gaza and 24 were intercepted.
Israel conducted at least 33 strikes on Gaza on Tuesday but said it would not provide a full tally until Wednesday.
Egyptian officials said they were still confident a truce deal could be reached and were keeping up their efforts. President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi planned to host Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on Wednesday. Mr. Abbas is head of the moderate Fatah faction that only recently reconciled with Hamas after a long-running rivalry. He has expressed support for the Egyptian proposal.
At the same time, Mr. Netanyahu faced renewed pressure from within his own government for a ground invasion of the 36-mile-long coastal strip, which is about twice the size of Washington, D.C. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused the prime minister of being overly cautious and said Israel had no alternative but to embark on an "all-out reconquest of the Gaza Strip."
"The Israel Defence Forces must finish this operation in control of the entire Gaza Strip," Mr. Lieberman said in a news conference.
In another sign of rising political friction within Israel over the letup in airstrikes, Mr. Netanyahu dismissed his deputy defense minister, Danny Danon, after he said Mr. Netanyahu had made a mistake in accepting the cease-fire.
Secretary of State John Kerry accused Hamas of putting innocent lives in danger to "play politics."
"I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in so brazenly firing rockets in multiple numbers in the face of a goodwill effort to operate a cease-fire," Mr. Kerry said.
Hamas spokesman Samy Abu Zohry said the proposed truce didn't meet any of Hamas's demands, including an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza and the release of prisoners.
"Hamas was fighting for Palestinians, not a cease-fire," he said at a news conference in Gaza.
Throughout the day, vapor trails could be seen through the skies as rockets were launched east of Gaza City. At around noon, a loud explosion was heard, what residents and the Gaza government said was an Israeli attack on an empty field adjacent to a home.
In the hours before Israel resumed strikes, the streets in Gaza began to fill again as residents started to emerge, some after many days inside. One market in Gaza City filled with shoppers as stalls hawked apples and oranges, while a vendor shouted prices through a megaphone. But by late afternoon, pedestrians had vanished in many areas, and even gas stations were empty.
Palestinians inspect a destroyed building after an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahya on Tuesday. Zuma Press
Nafiz Abu Shabar, the head of plastic surgery at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, sat at his desk wondering how long supplies would last.
"We've had shortages, but none like this before," he said. An Israeli and Egyptian blockade against Gaza had left it short of supplies even for daily needs, let alone for casualties the hospital now faces, he said.
"This is not justified by any means," he said.
Patients sat in recovery as more arrived. Mai Hamada, 31 years old, lay in bandages in a private room with burns covering a quarter of her body. Ms. Hamada, who suffers from cerebral palsy, was the victim of an Israeli attack on a center for the disabled on Saturday.
"What did we do to deserve this?" she said.
In addition to the 194 Palestinians killed, some 1,500 have been wounded, according to Palestinian health officials. At least 17,000 civilians in Gaza have fled their homes, according to the United Nations. At least 60 Israelis have been injured.
In a seaside neighborhood of Ashdod, a red police ribbon cordoned off a small earthen crater from a rocket that landed in a stone paved yard. The strike marked a rare miss by the country's Iron Dome System interceptor system and came shortly after the cease-fire was supposed to begin. The explosive shrapnel left pock marks on the entrance to the apartment building next door and shattered windows. Ana Friedman, a resident, said a neighbor telephoned her to come home urgently from work. When she arrived, she found the floor of her home littered with shards of glass.
"I started to cry,'' she said. "It was sad and depressing…especially after they announced a cease-fire." From our standpoint, it was supposed to be a cease-fire."
Instead of the truce, Mrs. Friedman and her husband, Yuri, now say that Israel's government should order a ground invasion—even if it means a spike in Israeli casualties. Mr. Friedman said he got a reservist military call-up to his combat engineer unit for a possible ground operation, but was later released. Standing amid the mess of his apartment, Mr. Friedman volunteered to go back to the unit to fight in Gaza.
"I would do anything,'' he said. "Anything so it will end.''
During Tuesday's lull in Gaza, Ismail Abdullah, a Palestinian relief worker, said he wanted Hamas to stop firing rockets.
"There is no place safe in Gaza," Mr. Abdullah said as he bought apples at a neighborhood stall. "People want to live."
—Ahmed Abuhamda and Jeffrey Sparshott contributed to this article
