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Fighting between Israel and Palestinians continues

2021-05-15T17:59:08.691Z


The number of victims in the recently escalated Middle East crisis is rising again, and rocket attacks have continued on both sides. But a ceasefire may be in sight.


Enlarge image

Rockets fly from Gaza towards Israel early Saturday morning

Photo: MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

For almost a week now, the fighting in the newly inflamed Middle East conflict has kept the world in suspense.

The conflict between Israel and the ruling Hamas in the Gaza Strip escalated at the beginning of the week.

Since then, militant Palestinians have been constantly bombarding Israel with rockets - according to the Israeli army, there were already more than 2000 in total. Israel responded with massive attacks in the coastal area.

Both sides continued their attacks on the night from Friday to Saturday.

Rockets were fired again at Israeli cities from the Gaza Strip on Saturday morning.

According to police, a house was hit by rocket fragments in the desert city of Beersheva in southern Israel.

There is property damage, but no injuries.

The Israeli coastal cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod were also attacked again.

The army announced that eight people were killed in the rocket fire in Israel over the past few days.

Dead civilians in Gaza, including children

On the Palestinian side, too, there are again civilian casualties. The official Wafa news agency announced that a house had been hit in the Shati refugee camp in western Gaza. At least seven members of a Palestinian family were killed, including children. Civilians were also killed in Beit Lahia in the north of the coastal strip and in other places. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the reports were being checked. According to Wafa, 136 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since violence escalated on Monday.

Despite the recent escalation, hopes of a possible ceasefire are rising.

Egypt is currently leading regional efforts to reach a ceasefire.

The governments of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates had also called for negotiations.

"The talks took a real and serious path on Friday," the Reuters news agency quotes a Palestinian official.

"The mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations are intensifying their contacts with all sides to restore calm, but an agreement has not yet been reached."

Hope from the USA

In the run-up to a meeting of the UN Security Council, the envoy of the Biden administration, Hady Amr, deputy state secretary for Israeli and Palestinian affairs, flown in on Friday.

International observers hope that he will provide a more sustainable mediation between the warring parties.

But it could above all be the losses on the Palestinian side that favor a quick ceasefire.

The Israeli military claimed to have significantly weakened Hamas in its latest offensive.

Dozens of high-ranking commanders have been killed and a Hamas tunnel network has been damaged.

In addition, a Hamas military intelligence facility and a number of rocket launchers were hit in the northern Gaza Strip, it said.

A Hamas spokesman told Al Jazeera television on Friday evening that the terrorist organization would consider negotiating to calm the fighting if Israel complied with certain demands.

According to the New York Times, the Israeli media also quoted anonymous security officials who would be open to talks about a ceasefire.

Riots in Israel

Israel hopes that calming the conflict could also end tensions in their own country.

Despite a curfew in the city of Lod, confrontations between Arab Israelis and security forces began again on Friday evening, the police said.

The officers were thrown with two incendiary bottles and then injured the suspect with gunshots in the leg and arrested him.

In the past few days there have also been attacks by Jewish Israelis on Arabs.

In Jaffa, an Arab quarter of Tel Aviv, alleged Jewish perpetrators threw two incendiary bottles into an Arab residential building.

According to media reports, a twelve-year-old was injured in the face.

rai / dpa

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-05-15

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