GAZA (Reuters) - Israel pressed ahead with an air offensive in Gaza on Saturday, killing five Hamas militants, and arrested another Palestinian cabinet minister in the West Bank as Gaza militants fired more rockets into Israel. The recent surge of violence has dashed hopes for a renewed truce called for by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose secular Fatah group is part of a unity government with Hamas despite Israeli and Western opposition to the Islamist group.
Israel's latest air strikes in Gaza around 2100 GMT (1600 EST) destroyed structures used by a Hamas-led security force, wounding eight passers-by. Earlier strikes also targeted buildings used by the group and killed five Hamas militants.
Israel has killed more than 40 Palestinians, mainly militants, in Gaza since mid-May. Gaza militants have fired 220 rockets into Israel in the same period, including some on Saturday. An Israeli woman died in an attack earlier this week.
Most of the West has launched an aid embargo against the Palestinian government, demanding Hamas, which won a parliamentary election last year, renounce violence and recognize Israel and past Palestinian peace agreements with it.
"Our message to the Zionist enemy is that you have no future on our land," Abu Ubaida al-Jarrah, chief commander of Hamas's Executive Force, said in a broadcast on the militant group's radio station aired during a funeral for the fighters killed.
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