05/10/2021 1:58 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 05/10/2021 2:54 PM
Nine Palestinians
, including three boys, died this Monday in an explosion in Gaza, which some media attributed to bombing by the Israeli Army in retaliation for the launch of several rockets from the Strip that reached Jerusalem, in one of the most tense days of the last few years.
"Nine martyrs, three of them children, and a certain number of wounded, arrived at the Beit Hanun hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip," the spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry told AFP.
"The occupier targeted the commander of the Al Qasam Brigades (Hamas armed wing) Muhamad Fayad in Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip," said a source from the Islamist movement, confirming the death of this senior official.
For its part, the Israeli army confirmed that it had carried out the attacks in the north of the enclave and targeted a Hamas commander, but could not "confirm or not" at the moment that these deaths were linked to the offensive.
However, at the moment it is unknown if the explosion in Gaza was due to a misfire from a Palestinian rocket or if it was an Israeli retaliation.
Armed Hamas militias in the Strip launched numerous projectiles that sounded
anti-aircraft alarms
in Israeli towns bordering Gaza, in Jerusalem and the Beit Shemesh area (central Israel).
The rocket salvoes were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Monday, at the end of a new day of violence in East Jerusalem, where clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police
caused more than 300 injuries.
Look also
Clashes in the Al Aqsa Mosque Esplanade and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem leave more than 300 injured
Alarm sirens sounded in Jerusalem, where the Western Wall was evacuated.
The armed Islamist movement Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, had threatened Israel if its forces did not withdraw this Monday night from the Esplanade of the Mosques,
an ultra-sensitive place
between Palestinians and Israelis in the center of the city. Old Jerusalem.
Hamas had given Israel "until 6:00 pm on Monday to withdraw its soldiers" from the Esplanade of the Mosques and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, the spokesman for the movement's military wing warned in a statement.
Rockets are fired from Gaza.
Photo: AFP
At 6:00 p.m., several rocket salvoes were fired from the east and north of the Gaza Strip towards Israel.
The day before,
incendiary balloons
and rockets
had been launched from the Palestinian enclave
into southern Israeli territory in support of the Jerusalem protesters.
Two of seven rockets were intercepted by the
Israeli
anti-missile system
.
In retaliation, the army
fired
on Hamas
"military posts"
in Gaza and closed the Erez border crossing, the only one that allows Gazans to pass into Israel.
Four days of fighting
These shots take place on the
fourth day of clashes
between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector of the city illegally occupied and annexed by Israel.
In the morning, hundreds of Palestinians fired projectiles at the Israeli security forces on the Esplanade of the Mosques.
The police officers replied with rubber bullets and tear gas.
In the afternoon, the situation was calmer but the tension was still evident.
Palestinians with the Hamas flag protest against the eviction of Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Photo: Reuters
The Palestinian Red Crescent reported more than 305 wounded Palestinians, of whom more than 200 had to be evacuated by ambulances.
For their part, the Israeli police, who warned not to let "extremists threaten the safety of the public," reported nine officers injured.
These clashes coincided with the celebration on Monday, according to the Hebrew calendar, of
"Jerusalem Day"
which marks the conquest of the eastern part of the city by Israel in 1967.
The "Jerusalem march", often involved in altercations and which had to gather thousands of Israelis tonight in the Old City, was finally canceled.
"We will not dance on a divided Jerusalem," said the Am Kalavi organization.
The police had asked the Palestinians
not to leave their homes
to avoid violence.
Faced with the increase in violence, the UN Security Council, at the request of Tunisia, must meet this Monday to address the situation in East Jerusalem.
Amid growing international calls for calm, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday praised the "steadfastness" of the security forces to guarantee "stability" in Jerusalem and criticized the
"misguided" coverage
of the " international media ".
For its part, the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas denounced "a barbaric aggression" by the Israeli forces.
On Friday night, more than 200 people were injured in clashes between the police and Palestinians on the esplanade, in the most violent riots since 2017 in this sector.
On Saturday and Sunday, calm returned to the square, but the fighting spread to other areas of East Jerusalem, where more than 100 people were injured, according to the Red Crescent.
Palestinian evictions
One of the causes of the recent tension in East Jerusalem is the future of several Palestinian families from the
Shaykh Jarrah
neighborhood
, threatened with expulsion for the benefit of Israeli settlers.
In this context, the Israeli justice postponed a hearing on the case scheduled for Monday.
The United States, Israel's main ally, called on senior "Israeli and Palestinian officials to act to end the violence" and expressed concern about "the possible expulsion of Sheikh Jarrah's Palestinian families."
The European Union and several Arab countries called for calm and restraint.
Turkey, for its part, promised to do everything possible "to end terrorism and the Israeli occupation."
In Jordan, a country at peace with Israel since 1994, more than 1,500 people demonstrated on Monday to demand the "expulsion" of the Israeli ambassador.
Source: agencies
ap
Look also
Tension in Jerusalem: after a night of fury and 200 injured, new protests are expected
Israeli President Tasks Opposition Yair Lapid To Form Government After Netanyahu Failure
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/H4DUTPGEDBGONIB2ML352GW4O4.jpg)
