Ground troops ready amid calls for calm
GAZA/JERUSALEM: Israel prepared ground troops along the Gaza border yesterday and Hamas launched rockets at Israel as international calls mounted for an end to the region’s fiercest hostilities in years.
One rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave crashed into a building near Israel’s commercial capital of Tel Aviv, injuring five Israelis, police said.
In renewed air strikes, Israel destroyed a sixstorey residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
One man was killed by an Israeli missile fired east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, medics said.
At least 83 people had been killed in Gaza since violence intensified on Monday, medics said, further straining hospitals already under heavy pressure from Covid19. Seven people have been killed in Israel, its military said.
Israel had prepared combat troops along the Gaza border and was in ‘‘various stages of preparing ground operations’’, a military spokesman said — a move that would recall similar incursions in 2014 and 200809.
‘‘The Chief of Staff is inspecting those preparations and providing guidance,’’ Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said.
Health authorities in Gaza said they were investigating the deaths of several people who might have inhaled poison gas.
Samples were being examined and they had yet to draw any conclusions, they said.
British Airways, Lufthansa, Virgin Atlantic, United, Delta and American Airlines cancelled flights to Tel Aviv yesterday.
Amid fears the violence could spiral further out of control, the United States planned to send an envoy, Hady Amr, for talks with Israel and Palestinians.
US President Joe Biden said he hoped fighting ‘‘will be closing down sooner than later’’, and a British minister urged Israel and Hamas to ‘‘take a step back’’.
Biden did not explain the reason for optimism. He said his national security team had been in frequent contact with counterparts in Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to try to bring about a resolution.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to ‘‘continue acting to strike at the military capabilities of Hamas’’ and other Gazan groups. Hamas is regarded as a terrorist group by the US and Israel.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israeli police clashes with Palestinians near al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken phoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and said Washington ‘‘was exerting efforts with all relevant parties to reach calm’’, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said. Abbas is a Hamas rival whose authority is limited to the Israelioccupied West Bank.
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.