Gaza militants’ rocket fire spurs Israeli air raids, killing 20

Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired dozens of rockets at the Jerusalem area and southern Israel on Monday, and Israeli jets retaliated, as weeks of confrontations exploded on two fronts.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that 20 Palestinians were killed, including nine children, with 65 injured. Two houses outside Jerusalem were slightly damaged and an antitank missile struck a car in southern Israel, wounding one person, Israeli officials and media said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Gaza militants of crossing a “red line” with the rocket attacks and warned that “we won’t put up with harm done to our land, our capital, our citizens and our soldiers.” He predicted that the current round of violence could last for “some time.”

The start of the rocket fire coincided with a 6 p.m. deadline Hamas had set for Israel to vacate the AlAqsa mosque, a Jerusalem shrine that hours earlier had been the site of one of the most serious clashes between Israel and the Palestinians in years.

Israeli officials said more than 50 rockets were fired.

“Al-Qassem Brigades are now firing missiles against the enemy in occupied Jerusalem in response to its crimes and aggression against the holy city and the harassment of our people in Sheikh Jarrakh and the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obeidah, said in a statement after the initial volley.

Sheikh Jarrakh is a traditionally Arab neighborhood in east Jerusalem that has become a recent flashpoint for violence over Israeli plans to evict some longtime Palestinian residents from their homes.

The U.S. said it was continuing to closely monitor the violence. “We have serious concerns about the situation,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.

Jerusalem has been experiencing its worst unrest in years since the beginning of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan more than three weeks ago. Israeli restrictions on gathering at a traditional Ramadan meeting place outside the Old City touched off the tensions, but after they were lifted, protests were rekindled by the threatened evictions.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused Palestinian leaders of stirring up riots.