Israeli troops mass at Gaza border
● International calls grow for an end to vicious conflict
Israel prepared ground troops along the Gaza border yesterday and Hamas launched rocket barrages at Israel as international calls mounted for an end to the region’s fiercest hostilities in years.
In renewed air strikes yesterday, Israel also destroyed a six-storey residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
One rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave crashed into a building near Israel’s commercial capital of Tel Aviv, injuring five Israelis, police said.
Sirens blared in cities across southern Israel, sending thousands running for shelters.
One man was killed by an Israeli missile fired east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, medics said.
At least 72 people have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated on Monday, medics said, further straining hospitals overburdened by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Seven people were killed in Israel, its military said.
A wave of violence between Jewish Israelis and the country’s Arab minority also spread in several Israeli cities, with attacks on synagogues and ArabJewish fighting in the streets.
British Airways cancelled its flights to and from Tel Aviv yesterday, the latest international carrier to avoid flying to Israel amid an escalating conflict.
United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines on Wednesday all cancelled flights between the US and Tel Aviv.
Israel had prepared combat troops along the Gaza border and was in various stages of preparing ground operations, a military spokesperson said, a move that would recall similar incursions during Israel-Gaza wars in 2014 and 2008-2009.
“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 overnight whom they said may have inhaled poisonous gas.
Washington 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”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to “continue acting to strike at the military capabilities of Hamas” and other Gaza groups.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces killed a senior Hamas commander and bombed several buildings, including highrises and a bank.
Hamas signalled defiance, its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, saying: “The confrontation with the enemy is open-ended.”
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 during Ramadan.
Turkey, whose hosting of Hamas leaders in Istanbul in recent years has contributed to a falling out with Israel, called on Muslim countries to show a united and clear stance over the Israel-Gaza violence.
Attacks in ethnically mixed areas worsened overnight.
One person was in critical condition after being shot by Arabs in the Arab-Jewish town of Lod, police said.
More than 150 arrests were made overnight in Lod and Arab towns in northern Israel, police said.
In Gaza, two multistorey residential buildings and a tower housing media outlets, including one linked to Hamas, collapsed after Israel urged occupants to evacuate in advance of its air strikes.