GAZA —
Israel said it killed 16 members of the Hamas armed wing in
Gaza in a barrage
on Wednesday and Palestinian fighters rained rockets into Israel as Washington
designated an envoy to try to calm their most intense hostilities in years,
Reuters reported.
اضافة اعلان
According to AFP,
Hamas responded with a barrage of rockets targeting Sderot in southern Israel.
A new rocket barrage was fired at the Israeli city of Ashdod and Israeli media
said the military was preparing for new salvoes on the Tel Aviv area.
At least 59, including
14 children and five women, have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated
on Monday, according to the enclave's health ministry. At least 330 were
wounded, some seriously, the ministry was quoted as saying by Palestinian News
Agency, WAFA. At least six people have been killed in Israel.
Hamas confirmed the
death of the commander, Bassem Issa, a long-time military commander wanted by
Israel for 30 year, and of "other leaders and holy warriors" in a
statement. Its leader Ismail Haniyeh added: "The confrontation with the
enemy is open-ended."
A Palestinian source
told Reuters that truce efforts by Egypt,
Qatar and the United Nations had made
no progress to end violence that flared this week after tension during the
Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and clashes in East Jerusalem.
Describing the scenes
of destruction as “harrowing”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a
senior aide, Hady Amr, was tasked to urge Israelis and Palestinians to seek
calm.
Pentagon chief Lloyd
Austin reaffirmed “ironclad support for Israel’s legitimate right to defend
itself”. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Israel would continue to
strike Hamas to restore long-term calm, according to a statement on their call.
The fighting is the
heaviest between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in the Hamas-ruled enclave,
and concern is growing that the situation could spiral out of control.
In Gaza, a
multi-storey residential building and a tower housing collapsed after Israel
warned occupants in advance to evacuate, and another structure was heavily
damaged in the air strikes.
Other air strikes hit
what Israel's military said were rocket launch sites, Hamas offices and homes
of Hamas leaders.
"Israel has gone
crazy," said a man on a Gaza street, where people ran out of their homes
as explosions rocked buildings.
Many Israelis also
spent a sleepless night as waves of rockets hit Israel's heartland.
Israelis ran to
shelters or lay on pavements in some communities far from Gaza.
"All of Israel is
under attack. It's a very scary situation to be in," said Margo Aronovic,
a 26-year-old student, in Tel Aviv.
Along the Gaza border,
an Israeli soldier was killed by an anti-tank missile, the military said. Two
people were killed by a rocket in Lod, near Tel Aviv.
Tension also spilled
over in mixed Arab-Jewish towns in Israel where there have been demonstrations
over the hostilities. After a synagogue was torched in Lod, police deployed
paramilitary reinforcements and announced a curfew.
US energy corporation
Chevron said it had shut down the Tamar natural gas platform off the Israeli
coast on the instructions of the Energy Ministry.
Hamas said it fired
210 rockets towards Beersheba in southern Israel and at Tel Aviv overnight in
response to the strikes on a tower building in Gaza City.
"If they (Israel)
want to escalate, the resistance is ready, if they want to stop, the resistance
is ready," Haniyeh said, setting as a condition a halt in the attacks in
Jerusalem and against Gaza.
The violence followed
weeks of tension during Ramadan, with clashes between Israeli police and
Palestinian protesters near Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.
These escalated ahead
of a court hearing - now postponed - that could lead to the eviction of
Palestinian families from East Jerusalem homes claimed by Jewish settlers.
The conflict has led
to the freezing of talks by Netanyahu's opponents on forming a governing
coalition to unseat him after Israel's inconclusive March 23 election.
Violence has also
flared in the occupied West Bank. Medical sources said a 16-year-old
Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli forces on Wednesday.
Israel has dispatched
infantry and armour to reinforce tanks already gathered on the border, evoking
memories of its last ground incursion into Gaza to stop rocket attacks in 2014.
Although the latest
problems in Jerusalem were the immediate trigger for hostilities,
Palestinians have also been frustrated as their aspirations for an independent state have
suffered setbacks in recent years.
These include
Washington’s recognition of disputed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a US plan
to end the conflict that they saw as favorable to Israel, and continued
settlement building.
Read more
Region & World
.jpg)
.jpg)
