IDF Summary of Overnight Events
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Overnight, the IDF targeted approximately 80 terror sites throughout the Gaza Strip, including under-ground rocket launching sites, terror tunnels and training bases, inflicting severe damage to the rocket launching capabilities of terror organizations operating out of the Gaza Strip. Since the start of operation Pillar of Defense the IDF has targeted 1350 terror sites throughout the Gaza Strip.
 
Furthermore, the IDF has targeted buildings owned by senior terrorist operatives, used as command posts and weapon storage facilities. IAF aircraft with the support of Israeli Navy soldiers targeted several Hamas’ police headquarters throughout the Gaza Strip. The IDF also targeted several Hamas-affiliated terrorist squads as they prepared to fire rockets towards Israel, including the squad responsible for firing rockets towards the community of Nahal Oz earlier this morning.
 
Hamas has turned the Gaza strip into a front line base for Iran, carrying out terror attacks and firing rockets at Israeli citizens, forcing them to live in unbearable circumstances.
 
The sites that were targeted have been positively identified by precise intelligence over the course of months.
 
The IDF is determined to continue targeting terror activity sites that are used to carry out attacks against the citizens of Israel.

> Read the complete hour by hour breakdown here.

> Watch an IDF video on rockets from Gaza being fired from populated civilian areas.

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NEWS REPORTS OF NOTE

The Times of Israel: Mashaal nixes possibility of truce; heavy rocket fire on south (Live Blog, Day 5, Part 2, of Operation Pillar of Defense)

Israel’s air strikes have intensified in the past few hours, and Hamas rocket attacks into southern Israel have continued unabated. Prospects for an early ceasefire faded, with Hamas and Israel far apart. International efforts are continuing to push the two sides toward a truce before Israel launches a wider ground offensive to try to wipe out Gaza’s terror infrastructure.

The Times of Israel is live blogging developments.

> Read the full blog here.

The Jerusalem Post: ‘Israel halted Gaza invasion to give talks more time’

Israel agreed to briefly hold off on sending ground forces into Gaza to allow time for cease-fire efforts to continue, an Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Speaking at a press conference in Cairo Monday, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said although Hamas is aware that Israel is “capable” of an invasion, it would not “be a picnic, but a political disaster” for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Mashaal stated that if Israel wants a truce, it must initiate the cease-fire as they started the war, adding that Hamas caught Israel “off-guard” with their weapons.

However, officials in the prime minister’s office denied Mashaal’s statement that Netanyahu had asked for a cease fire.
“We have been hitting Hamas very hard,” the official said.

He explained that Israel had from the air attacked its weapons arsenal, its leadership, its buildings and communication apparatus.

“Hamas is under a lot of pressure and as a result they are saying many things, that are in no way connected to reality,” he said.

> Read the full story here.

The Washington Post: Death toll rises as Israeli military assaults Gaza Strip

TEL AVIV — The death toll of Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip rose to 91 Monday, the local Health Ministry said, as shelling and airstrikes continued overnight and into the morning.

Hoping to avert an Israeli ground invasion, foreign leaders stepped up efforts to broker a cease-fire. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was en route to Cairo, where he intended to “appeal personally for ending the violence,” a statement from his office said.

Meanwhile, Egypt dispatched Saad al-Katany, the chief of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, to lead a delegation to the Gaza Strip on Monday in a show of solidarity for Palestinians living in the besieged enclave.

The Israeli military said in a statement Monday that it struck 80 “terror sites” overnight throughout Gaza, “inflicting severe damage to the rocket-launching capabilities” of militant groups in the Palestinian territory.

> Read full story here.

The New York Times: An Outgunned Hamas Tries to Tap Islamists’ Growing Clout

CAIRO — Emboldened by the rising power of Islamists around the region, the Palestinian militant group Hamas demanded new Israeli concessions to its security and autonomy before it halts its rocket attacks on Israel, even as the conflict took an increasing toll on Sunday.

After five days of punishing Israeli airstrikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and no letup in the rocket fire in return, representatives of Israel and Hamas met separately with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Sunday for indirect talks about a truce.
The talks came as an Israeli bomb struck a house in Gaza on Sunday afternoon, killing 11 people, in the deadliest single strike since the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated on Wednesday. The strike, along with several others that killed civilians across the Gaza Strip, signaled that Israel was broadening its range of targets on the fifth day of the campaign.

> Read the full story here.