2 killed in Gaza, 4 wounded in Israel in most intense fighting since 2014
JERUSALEM — Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike and four Israelis were wounded by mortar fire from Gaza on Saturday as fighting in and around the Gaza Strip escalated to what the Israeli prime minister called the most intense level since the 2014 war.
Hamas and allied Islamic militant groups fired nearly 100 projectiles at Israeli territory throughout the day, most of them mortar rounds, though rockets were fired at the city of Ashkelon.
Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense batteries intercepted more than 20 of those that had the potential to do damage, the military said, but some got through. A mortar struck the courtyard of a Sderot synagogue, according to the Israeli military, and local news media reported that a house in Sderot was also hit, wounding four members of a family.
The alerts kept coming all day long, and Israeli aircraft pounded at scores of what it called strictly military targets, including tunnels and storage sites for helium used to inflate incendiary balloons.
But Israel’s targets Saturday also included one in downtown Gaza City that Israel said was used by Hamas as a training center for urban warfare and was built atop a tunnel complex used to train fighters in underground combat.
Two Palestinian teenagers were killed and 14 people wounded in the attack.
Witnesses said the teenagers were relaxing near the roof of the five-story structure when Israeli drones struck with warning shots — an Israeli practice known as “roof knocking” — before the bombing began.
Israel said it warned Palestinians in Arabic to steer clear of Hamas locations and centers of militant activity. The initial drone strikes came more than an hour before the building was blown up, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces.
The sheer number of mortars and rockets fired from Gaza was itself an escalation. Of roughly 100 launched before 8 p.m., most landed in open areas, said Brig. Gen. Zvika Haimovich of Israel’s air defense forces.
By Saturday night, the two sides still were exchanging blows, but Hamas said at about 10 p.m. that regional mediation had brought about a cease-fire. It was not immediately clear, however, that this would hold.