Militant tunnels in Gaza ‘destroyed’
THE Israeli military has unleashed a wave of heavy airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, saying it destroyed nine miles of militant tunnels and the homes of nine alleged Hamas commanders.
The latest attacks killed a local Gaza leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group, according to the Israeli military, which blamed him for some of the thousands of rocket attacks launched at Israel.
Residents of Gaza who were awakened by the overnight barrage described it as the heaviest since the war began a week ago, and even more powerful than a wave of airstrikes in Gaza City the day before that left 42 dead and flattened three buildings.
There was no immediate word on the casualties from the latest strikes. A three-storey building in Gaza City was heavily damaged, but residents said the military warned them 10 minutes before the strike and everyone cleared out. They said many of the airstrikes hit nearby farmland.
Gaza’s mayor Yahya Sarraj told Al-Jazeera TV that the airstrikes had caused extensive damage to roads and other infrastructure. “If the aggression continues we expect conditions to become worse,” he said. He also warned that the territory was running low on fuel and other spare parts.
The UN has warned that Gaza’s sole power station is at risk of running out of fuel. The territory already experiences daily power outages of eight to 12 hours, and tap water is undrinkable.
The war broke out last Monday, when Hamas fired long-range rockets at Jerusalem after weeks of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police.
The protests were focused on the heavy-handed policing of a flashpoint holy site during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers. Since then, the Israeli military has launched hundreds of airstrikes that it says are targeting Hamas’ militant infrastructure. Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired more than 3,100 rockets into Israel.
At least 200 Palestinians have been killed in hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza, including 59 children and 35 women, with 1,300 people wounded. Eight people in Israel have been killed in rocket attacks launched from Gaza, including a five-year-old boy and a soldier.
The military said it struck nine houses in different parts of northern Gaza that belonged to “high ranking commanders” in Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has controlled the territory since 2007.
In recent days, Israel has targeted the homes of a number of senior Hamas leaders, including Yehiyeh Sinwar, the top leader inside Gaza. The group’s leadership goes underground when the fighting begins and it is unlikely any were at home at the time of the strikes.