Support for Palestinians
Planes pound Gaza amid international calls for cease-fire
Several hundred people rally at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Allentown in support of Palestinians amid ongoing violence in the Middle East. Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City killed at least 42 people Sunday, according to Palestinian medics, while Hamas launched rockets from civilian areas in Gaza toward civilian areas in Israel.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli warplanes unleashed a series of heavy airstrikes at several locations of Gaza City early Monday, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled 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.
In a televised address Sunday, Netanyahu said the attacks were continuing at “full-force” and would “take time.” Israel “wants to levy a heavy price” on the Hamas militant group, he said.
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.
Meanwhile, eight foreign ministers spoke about the conflict Sunday during an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
Efforts by China, Norway and Tunisia to get the U.N. body to issue a statement, including a call for the cessation of hostilities, have been blocked by the United States, which, according to diplomats, is concerned it could interfere with diplomatic efforts to stop the violence.
President Joe Biden gave no signs of pressuring Israel to agree to an immediate cease-fire despite calls from some Democrats for the Biden administration to get more involved. His ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the diplomats the United States was “working tirelessly through diplomatic channels” to stop the fighting.
Diplomatic appeals by other countries for Hamas and Israel to stop their fire showed no sign of progress
In the Israeli air assault Sunday, families were buried under piles of rubble and twisted reinforced steel bars.
The hostilities have escalated over the past week, marking the worst fighting in the territory that is home to 2 million Palestinians since Israel and Hamas’ devastating war seven years ago.
“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 out a survivor out.
Haya Abdelal, 21, who lives in a building next to one that was destroyed, said she was sleeping when the airstrikes sent her fleeing into the street.
“We are tired,” she said, “We need a truce. We can’t bear it anymore.”
The Israeli army spokesperson’s office said the strike targeted Hamas “underground military infrastructure.” As a result of the strike, “the underground facility collapsed, causing the civilian houses’ foundations above them to collapse as well, leading to unintended casualties,” it said.
Israel’s airstrikes have leveled 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 those of other media outlets.
Sally Buzbee, the AP’s executive editor, called for an independent probe into the airstrike that destroyed the AP office Saturday.
The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders asked the International Criminal Court on Sunday to investigate Israel’s bombing of the AP building and others housing media organizations as a possible war crime.
At least 188 Palestinians have been killed in hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza, with 1,230 people wounded. Eight people in Israel have been killed in some of the 3,100 rocket attacks launched from Gaza.
In a separate incident Sunday, Israeli medics said two people were killed and more than 150 injured after a bleacher collapsed at an uncompleted synagogue in Givat Zeev, a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem.