Israel, Palestine kids share bombing toll
International mediation fails to stop hostilities as rockets, missiles continue to fall
A total of 36 children, 34 in Gaza and two in Israel, have died as the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians marked its sixth day on Saturday, with no sign yet of an imminent end.
GAZA/JERUSALEM—A total of 36 children, 34 in Gaza and two in Israel, have died as the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians marked its sixth day on Saturday.
Israel pummeled Gaza with air strikes and Palestinian militants launched rocket barrages at Israel yesterday, with no sign yet of an imminent end to the worst escalation in years amid a rising death toll.
US and Arab diplomats were seeking to calm the situation after a night of violence that saw militants fire about 200 rockets at cities in Israel, whose planes struck what it said were targets used by Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza.
At least 136 people have been killed in Gaza since hostilities erupted on Monday, including 34 children and 21 women, with 950 others wounded, Palestinian medics said.
Israel has reported eight dead, including a soldier on the Gaza border and six civilians, two of them children.
12 die overnight
The Israeli bombardment killed at least 12 Palestinians overnight, medics said on Saturday, including a woman and her four children who died when their house in a refugee camp was hit. Three others also died and many others were wounded, the medics said.
Thousands of Israelis ran for shelter as sirens sounded overnight. One rocket launched from Gaza struck a residential building in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, police said. Media said some people were hurt in the town dashing to cover.
In Gaza, Akram Farouq, 36, dashed out of his home with his family after a neighbor told him they had received a call from an Israeli officer warning that their building would be hit.
“We haven’t slept all night because of the explosions, and now I am out in the street with my wife and children, who are weeping and trembling,” said the 36-year-old.
Israel’s military said its aircraft struck rocket launch sites and apartments that belonged to Hamas militants. It said one target had fired a rocket barrage at Jerusalem on Monday.
Hamas launched its rocket assault on Monday after tensions over a court case to evict several Palestinian families in East Jerusalem and in retaliation for Israeli police clashes with Palestinians near the city’s al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
Regional and international diplomatic efforts have yet to show any signs of halting hostilities.
US President Joe Biden’s envoy Hady Amr flew in on Friday, before Sunday’s United Nations Security Council’s meeting. The US Embassy in Israel said he aimed “to reinforce the need to work toward a sustainable calm.”
Racing for cover
Palestinian casualties have extended beyond Gaza. Palestinians, who each year on May 15 mark their displacement in the 1948 war that surrounded Israel’s creation, have reported 11 killed in the occupied West Bank after protesters and Israeli forces clashed.
Across central and southern Israel, from towns bordering Gaza to Beersheba and metropolitan Tel Aviv, people have adjusted their lives, racing for cover when they hear sirens wail, radio and TV warnings or red alert messages beeping on cell phones.
Hostilities between Israel and Gaza have been accompanied by violence in Israel’s mixed communities of Jews and Arabs. Synagogues have been attacked, Arab-owned shops vandalized and street fights have broken out, prompting Israel’s president to warn of civil war.