Israel said on Friday it would not bow to international pressure to end air strikes in Gaza that officials there said had killed almost 100 Palestinians, despite an offer by President Barack Obama to help negotiate a ceasefire with militants, according to The Associated Press.
Asked if Israel might move from the mostly aerial attacks of the past four days into a ground war in Gaza to stop militant rocket fire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied, "we are weighing all possibilities and preparing for all possibilities," the AP reported.
"No international pressure will prevent us from acting with all power," he told reporters in Tel Aviv a day after a telephone conversation with Obama about the worst flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian violence in almost two years, according to the AP.
On Friday Washington affirmed Israel's right to defend itself in a statement from the Pentagon, but Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya'alon he was concerned "about the risk of further escalation and emphasized the need for all sides to do everything they can to protect civilian lives and restore calm.," the AP reported.
Medical officials in Gaza said at least 75 civilians, including 23 children, were among at least 99 people killed in the aerial bombardments which Israel began on Tuesday, including the 12 killed on Friday, according to the AP.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the United Nations Security Council to order an immediate truce,
but Israel said it was determined to end cross-border rocket attacks that intensified last month after its forces arrested hundreds of activists from the Islamist Hamas movement in the occupied West Bank following the abduction there of three Jewish teenagers who were later found killed, the AP reported.
Israel's campaign "will continue until we are certain that quiet returns to Israeli citizens", Netanyahu said, according to the AP. Israel had attacked more than 1,000 targets in Gaza and there were "more to go."
