10 wounded, 4 seriously, in Gaza strike: Israeli medics
Attack came as Palestinians went on strike in a rare collective action
Gaza City (Gaza Strip), May 18: A strike launched from Gaza on Tuesday wounded 10 people in southern Israel, four of them seriously, Israeli medics reported, as Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers continued to trade attacks.
The projectile attack Tuesday afternoon hit a region in southern Israel, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service. It came as Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territories went on strike in a rare collective action against Israel’s policies. With the war in Gaza showing no sign of abating and truce efforts apparently stalled, the general strike and expected protests could again widen the conflict after a spasm of communal violence in Israel and protests across the occupied West Bank last week.
Israel’s airstrikes toppled a six-storey building that housed bookstores and educational centres used by the Islamic University and other colleges, leaving behind a massive mound of rebar and concrete slabs. Desks, office chairs, books and computer wires could be seen in the debris. Residents sifted through the rubble, searching for their belongings. Israel warned the building’s residents ahead of time, sending them fleeing into the predawn darkness, and there were no reports of casualties.
Israel said it was targeting militants, their tunnels and rocket launchers across the territory. “The whole street started running, then destruction, an earthquake,” said Jamal Herzallah, a resident of the area. “This whole area was shaking.”
Heavy fighting broke out May 10 when Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israel’s heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint site sacred to Jews and Muslims, and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.