TIMELINE: Israeli-Hamas violence since truce ended
(Reuters) - Israel vowed on Tuesday to break Hamas's will and rejected any truce with the group before cross-border rocket fire ceased. Here is a timeline of events since Hamas ended a truce earlier in December:
December 14 - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is quoted as saying the group will not renew the six-month-old truce with Israel.
December 18 - Hamas Islamists declare the end of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel which expires the next day with a surge of cross-border fighting.
December 24 - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip ratchet up rocket fire toward Israel.
December 27 - Israel launches air strikes on Gaza in response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire that intensified after Hamas ended the six-month ceasefire.
December 28 - Hamas says an Israeli air strike destroys a laboratory building at the Islamic University, a significant cultural symbol of Hamas.
-- Israeli aircraft bomb some 40 smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip that provide a lifeline to the outside world.
December 29 - Israel steps up its air strikes and bombs the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, the first air strike targeting a government building in the offensive.
-- Israel declares areas around the Gaza Strip a "closed military zone."
-- Palestinian militants fire rockets deeper into southern Israel.
December 30 - Israeli warplanes press on for the fourth day with attacks on Hamas targets.
-- Palestinian casualties since December 27 are 348 dead and more than 800 wounded. A U.N. agency says at least 62 of the dead are civilians.
-- Three Israeli civilians and a soldier have been killed by Palestinian rockets since the air strikes began.
-- Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum urges Palestinian groups to respond using "all available means" against Israel.
-- Israel says its attacks herald "long weeks of military action."
