OCCUPIED JERSULAEM — Israel's occupation forces said Sunday it had bombed the
home of the political leader of Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as the
UN Security Council was to meet amid global alarm about the escalating
conflict.
اضافة اعلان
The heaviest fighting since 2014, sparked by unrest in
Jerusalem, saw both sides again trade heavy fire and has now claimed 174 lives
in the crowded coastal enclave of
Gaza and killed 10 people in Israel since
Monday.
Israel said Sunday morning its "continuing wave of
strikes" had in the past 24 hours struck over 90 targets across Gaza,
where the destruction of a building housing news media organizations sparked
international outcry.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was
"dismayed" by civilian casualties in Gaza and "deeply
disturbed" by Israel's strike on Saturday on the tower housing the
Associated Press and Al Jazeera bureaus, a spokesperson said.
Israel's occupation forces said Sunday that about 2,900
rockets had been fired from the coastal strip controlled by Hamas towards
Israel, "of which approximately 450 failed launches fell in the Gaza
Strip".
Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system had intercepted about
1,150 rockets in a week when Israeli residential buildings have been it and
sirens have wailed across towns and major cities.
The bloodiest military conflict in seven years has also
sparked a wave of inter-communal violence and mob attacks between Jews and
Arab-Israelis, as well as deadly clashes in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli occupation forces said it had targeted the
infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including by pounding a vast tunnel
system with some 100 strikes, and by targeting weapon factories and storage
sites.
Israeli air strikes hit the home of Yahya Sinwar, head of
Hamas' political wing in the Gaza Strip, the army said, releasing a video
showing plumes of smoke and intense damage, but without saying if he was
killed.
"Among the targets struck are the residences of Yahya
Sinwar, Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau in Gaza, as well as of his
brother, Muhammad Sinwar, Head of Logistics and Manpower for Hamas,"
Israel's occupation forces said in a statement.
Media offices destroyed
The civilian death toll has mounted in Gaza, where at least
47 children have been killed, 1,200 people wounded and entire buildings and
city blocks reduced to rubble.
The Israeli occupation forces says it takes all possible
precautions to avoid harming civilians and has blamed Hamas for deliberately
placing military targets in densely populated areas.
One strike on Gaza killed 10 members of an extended family.
The children "didn't carry weapons, they didn't fire
rockets", said Mohammad al-Hadidi, one of the grieving fathers.
"They are sheltering in schools, mosques and other
places during a global Covid-19 pandemic with limited access to water, food,
hygiene and health services," UN humanitarian official Lynn Hastings said.
Balls of flame and a cloud of debris shot into the sky
Saturday afternoon as Israel's air force flattened the 13-floor Gaza building
housing Qatar-based Al Jazeera and the Associated Press news agency, after
giving a warning to evacuate.
Al Jazeera's Jerusalem bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, told
AFP: "It is clear that those who are waging this war do not only want to
spread destruction and death in Gaza, but also to silence media that are
witnessing, documenting and reporting the truth."
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said he was "shocked
and horrified" by the attack.
Jawad Mehdi, the owner of the Jala Tower, said an Israeli
intelligence officer had told him he had just an hour to evacuate the building.
Israeli occupation forces said the building housed not only
news bureaus but offices of Hamas fighters.
AFP Chairman Fabrice Fries said the agency "stands in
solidarity with all the media whose offices were destroyed in Gaza" and
called on all parties "to respect the media's freedom to report on
events".
'Grave concern'
The UN Security Council was due to meet at 1400 GMT Sunday.
Israel ally Washington, which had blocked a UNSC meeting
scheduled for Friday, has been criticized for not doing enough to stem the
bloodshed.
US President
Joe Biden again underscored Israel's right to
defend itself in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Biden also expressed his "grave concern" over the
violence as well as for the safety of journalists.
Earlier Saturday, Biden also spoke to Palestinian president
Mahmud Abbas in their first call since the US president took office.
US Secretary for Israel-Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was to
hold talks Sunday with Israeli leaders before meeting Palestinian officials to
seek a "sustainable calm", the State Department said.
In a televised statement late Saturday, Netanyahu thanked
Biden for "unequivocal support".
'They're striking our children'
In Gaza, the grieving father Hadidi said he had lost most of
his family in a strike on a three-story building in the Shati refugee camp that
killed 10 relatives -- two mothers and their four children each.
"They are striking our children -- children -- without
prior warning," said the devastated father, whose five-month-old baby was
also wounded in the explosion.
Palestinian fighters responded with volleys of rockets into
Israel, killing a man on the outskirts of commercial capital Tel Aviv, police
and medics said.
The escalating conflict was sparked by unrest in Jerusalem
that had simmered for weeks and led to clashes between riot police and
Palestinians, fuelled by anger over planned Israeli expulsions of Palestinians
in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem.
Major clashes broke out at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound --
Islam's third-holiest site -- on May 7 following a crackdown against protests.
Mixed Jewish-Arab towns within Israel have also seen mob
violence, with more than 750 people arrested this week, police said.
Israel's northern borders with Lebanon and Syria, with which
it remains technically at war, were also tense.
Three rockets were launched from Syria Friday, while
Israel's occupation forces said it fired "warning shots" towards
potential infiltrators from Lebanon, killing a Lebanese protester.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have repeatedly staged protests
across the world, including in Paris, where police used water cannon against
them.
Read more
Region & World
.jpg)
.jpg)
