‘A HEAVY PRICE’
Netanyahu threatens ‘full force’ as Israeli airstrikes topple buildings and cut power
Israeli warplanes unleashed a new series of heavy airstrikes at several locations of Gaza City yesterday, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled the fourth war with Gaza’s Hamas rulers would rage on.
Explosions rocked the city from north to south for 10 minutes in an attack that was heavier, on a wider area and lasted longer than a series of air raids 24 hours earlier in which 42 Palestinians were killed — the deadliest single attack in the latest round of violence between Israel and the Hamas militant group that rules Gaza. The earlier Israeli airstrikes flattened three buildings.
There were no immediate reports of injuries, and in the predawn darkness there was little information on the extent of damage.
Local media reports said the main coastal road west of the city, security compounds and open spaces were hit in the latest raids. The power distribution company said airstrikes damaged a line feeding electricity from the only power plant to large parts of southern Gaza City.
In a address, Netanyahu said Israel’s attacks were continuing at “full force” and would “take time”. Israel “wants to levy a heavy price” on the Hamas militant group, he said, flanked by his defence minister and political rival, Benny Gantz.
Hamas also pressed on, launching rockets from civilian areas in Gaza toward civilian areas in Israel. One slammed into a synagogue in the southern city of Ashkelon hours before evening services for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, Israeli emergency services said. No injuries were reported.
In the Israeli air assault on Sunday, families were buried under piles of cement rubble and twisted rebar. A yellow canary lay crushed on the ground. Shards of glass and debris covered streets blocks away from the major downtown thoroughfare where the three buildings were hit over the course of five minutes.
The hostilities have escalated over the past week, marking the worst fighting in the territory that is home to 2 million Palestinians since Israel
televised
and Hamas’ devastating 2014 war.
“I have not seen this level of destruction through my 14 years of work,” said Samir al-Khatib, an emergency rescue official in Gaza. “Not even in the 2014 war.”
Rescuers furiously dug through the rubble using excavators and bulldozers amid clouds of heavy dust. One shouted, “Can you hear me?” into a hole. Minutes later, first responders pulled a survivor out. The Gaza Health Ministry said 16 women and 10 children were among those killed, with more than 50 people wounded.
The Israeli Army spokesperson’s office said the strike targeted Hamas “underground military infrastructure”.
Among those reported killed was Dr Ayman Abu Al-Ouf, the head of the internal medicine department at Shifa Hospital and a senior member of the hospital’s coronavirus management committee. Two of Abu Al-Ouf’s teenage children and two other family
members were also buried under the rubble.
Gaza’s healthcare system, already gutted by an Israeli and Egyptian blockade imposed in 2007 after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces, had been struggling with a surge in coronavirus infections even before the latest conflict.
Israel’s airstrikes have levelled a number of Gaza City’s tallest buildings, which Israel alleges contained Hamas military infrastructure. Among them was the building housing The Associated Press Gaza office and other media outlets.
Sally Buzbee, the AP’s executive editor, called for an independent investigation into the airstrike.
Netanyahu alleged Hamas military intelligence was operating inside the building and said any evidence would be shared through intelligence channels. Neither the White House nor the State Department would say if any had been seen.
Meanwhile, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has asked the International Criminal Court to
investigate Israel’s bombing of the AP building and others housing media organisations as a possible war crime.
The Paris-based group said in a letter to the court’s chief prosecutor that the offices of 23 international and local media organisations have been destroyed over the past six days. It said the attacks serve “to reduce, if not neutralise, the media’s capacity to inform the public”.
The AP had operated from the building for 15 years, including through three previous wars between Israel and Hamas. The news agency’s cameras, operating from its top floor office and roof terrace, offered 24-hour live shots as militant rockets arched toward Israel and Israeli airstrikes hammered Gaza City.
At least 188 Palestinians have so far been killed in hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza, including 55 children and 33 women, with 1230 people wounded. Eight people in Israel have been killed in some of the 3100 rocket attacks launched from Gaza, including a 5-year-old boy and a soldier.