Netanyahu says Israel to intensify offensive against Hamas in Gaza

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel will intensify its week-old offensive against Hamas in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, after the Islamist group continued firing rockets at Israel instead of accepting an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire. "It would have been preferable to have solved this diplomatically, and this is what we tried to do when we accepted the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, but Hamas leaves us no choice but to expand and intensify the campaign against it," Netanyahu said in broadcast remarks. (Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Mark Heinrich)