Gaza Update: Hamas Vows to Hit Back

On the political battlefront, there were a couple of notable press conferences on Tuesday. Proving that Twitter has arrived, the Israeli Consulate in New York took its case into cyber-space with a question-and-answer session. Standard diplomatic lines --- "We'd rather negotiate than fight" --- but one key theme is Israel's bolstering of the "acceptable" Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas' conference, while an old-fashioned presentation to TV cameras, was more significant, however. A masked spokesman set out a resolute line of threatened retaliation:

We tell the leaders of the enemy - if you continue with your assault, we will hit with our rockets further than the cities we have hit so far.

Far more important than the number of rockets and how far they are flung is the political message:

If you think that Hamas and al-Qassam will be crushed, we will rise up from the rubble.