Hamas-Israel fighting abates as truce calls mount
GAZA CITY: Cross-border fighting between Israel and Hamas appeared to abate slightly early on Tuesday, with no fatalities logged in Gaza for the first time since hostilities erupted on May 10, and fewer long-range Palestinian rocket attacks.
But a call by US President Joe Biden on Monday in support of a ceasefire appeared to go unheeded. Israel said it would press on, for now, with an offensive to destroy the capabilities of the armed factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad and rocket attacks continued.
The United States and other world powers have been pushing for an end to the fiercest escalation in the conflict in years, in which Gaza officials say 212 Palestinians, including 61 children and 36 women, have been killed.
There was no immediate word of Israeli casualties on Tuesday. Ten people have been killed in Israel, including two children, in previous Palestinian rocket or missile attacks.
In signs of a possible spread of the violence, the Israeli military said its troops shot dead a Palestinian who tried to attack them with a gun and improvised explosives in the occupied West Bank and that it downed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) near the border with Jordan on Tuesday.
General strikes were held on Tuesday in East Jerusalem, Arab towns within Israel and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with posts on social media bearing a Palestinian flag and urging solidarity “from the sea to the river”.
Palestinian businesses across East Jerusalem were shuttered ,including in the walled Old City, and in the mixed Jewish-Arab port city of Haifa in northern Israel, protest organiser Raja Zaatar told Reuters the strike had closed 90% of businesses in Arab neighbourhoods.
Biden approves $735 million arms sale to Israel: Sources
President Joe Biden’s administration approved the potential sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to Israel, and congressional sources said on Monday that US lawmakers were not expected to object to the deal despite violence between Israel and Palestinian militants. Three congressional aides said Congress was officially notified of the intended commercial sale on May 5.