Dozens dead as Israel, Hamas escalate aerial bombardments
Hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group that runs Gaza escalated yesterday as each side attacked the other with aerial bombardments that recalled their last major conflict in 2014.
A 13-story residential block in Gaza collapsed after one of several dozen Israeli air strikes, albeit after an Israeli warning, as Israelis reported explosions and sirens more than 70km up the coast from Gaza.
Thirty-one people were reported dead: 28 in Gaza and 3 in Israel.
Late into the night, Gazans reported their homes shaking and the sky lighting up with near-constant Israeli strikes.
The fighting between Israel and Gaza’s armed factions was triggered by clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque on Monday.
Even before a barrage sent in retaliation for the destruction of the tower block, which contained a civilian Hamas office, Israel reported that 480 rockets had been fired across the border by Palestinian militant groups, sending entire Israeli communities running to air raid shelters.
The White House condemned the attacks, and said the primary US focus was on de-escalation.
The International Committee of the Red Cross urged all sides to step back, and reminded them of the requirement in international law to try to avoid civilian casualties.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would step up the strength and frequency of strikes on Gaza, an enclave of 2mn people, in response to the rocket attacks.
Israel said it had sent 80 jets to bomb Gaza, and dispatched infantry and armour to reinforce the tanks already gathered on the border, evoking memories of the last Israeli ground incursion into Gaza to stop rocket attacks, in 2014.
Video footage on Tuesday showed three plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the Gaza block as it toppled over.
Electricity in the surrounding area went out.
In Tel Aviv pedestrians ran for shelter, and diners streamed out of restaurants while others flattened themselves on pavements as the sirens sounded.
The head of the Arab League condemned yesterday deadly Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip as “indiscriminate and irresponsible” and said Israel had provoked an earlier increase in violence by its actions in Jerusalem.
The violence began with confrontations between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces at Al Aqsa Mosque in the heart of Jerusalem’s walled Old City. Israel launched air strikes on Gaza after Palestinian groups fired rockets close to Jerusalem.
“Israeli violations in Jerusalem, and the government’s tolerance of Jewish extremists hostile to Palestinians and Arabs, is what led to the ignition of the situation in this dangerous way,” Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a statement.
The attacks in Gaza were a “miserable show of force at the expense of children’s blood”, he said, adding that “Israeli provocations” were an affront to Muslims on the eve of the Eid holiday at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Arab League foreign ministers held a virtual emergency meeting yesterday to discuss the situation in Jerusalem.
The meeting would reaffirm the centrality of the Palestinian issue for Arab states and solidarity with Palestinians in Jerusalem, a statement said.
In light of events in Jerusalem, Egypt declared its “total rejection and condemnation of these oppressive Israeli practices,” Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told the League.
The head of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), which held an emergency meeting in Jeddah, “praised the steadfastness of the Palestinian people stationed in the occupied city of Jerusalem and their response to the Israeli attacks on the holy sites”, Saudi state agency SPA reported.
Turkey also condemned the Israeli air strikes.
“The Israeli government must finally understand that it will not be able to suppress the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights and demands by using indiscriminate and disproportionate power,” the Turkish foreign ministry said.
The Gaza health ministry said at least 28 Palestinians, including 10 children, had been killed.
Israel disputed that account, saying it had killed at least 20 Hamas fighters and that a third of the hundreds of rockets launched by the fighters had fallen short, causing Palestinian civilian casualties.