Israel bombs Gaza as minister poised to quit

Israel pressed its bombardment of Gaza on Saturday as a war cabinet minister looked set to carry through on his threat to quit a government under mounting pressure over its conduct of the military campaign.

Strikes rattled various parts of the Gaza Strip and appeared to be focused on central areas of the Palestinian territory, witnesses and Agence France-Presse journalists reported.

In the same city on Saturday, five people were killed and seven wounded when an Israeli warplane bombed the Mhana family’s home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, Gaza emergency services said.

Elsewhere, medics at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said six people were killed and others wounded in an Israeli rocket attack on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where witnesses said gun battles raged.

Meanwhile, the office of war cabinet member Benny Gantz has announced a news conference for Saturday, the deadline he gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month to approve a post-war plan for Gaza.

Israeli media have speculated that Gantz, a centrist former military chief who had been one of Netanyahu’s main rivals before joining the war cabinet, was likely to carry through on a threat to resign.

However, any such move is not expected to affect the stability of Netanyahu’s government, a coalition of his right-wing Likud with far-right and ultra-orthodox Jewish parties.