Israel Holds Off on Escalating Gaza Barrage; West Wants Truce
Israel appeared to hold off on a threatened escalation of its week-old Gaza Strip barrage on Monday despite balking at Western calls for a ceasefire with an equally defiant Hamas.
On Sunday, the Israeli military had warned residents of the northern border town of Beit Lahiya to leave or risk their lives when, after nightfall, it planned to intensify air strikes against suspected Palestinian rocket sites among civilian homes.
A U.N. aid agency said around a quarter of Beit Lahiya’s 70,000 residents fled, fearing Israeli attacks which, according to Gaza officials, have killed more than 166 people, most of them non-combatants, since the cross-border shelling war began.
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