05/15/2021 4:54 AM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 05/15/2021 4:54 AM
Israeli warplanes bombed multiple targets in the central Gaza Strip between Friday night and early Saturday as clashes with Palestinian groups resumed, at the end of a bloody day in the West Bank and unprecedented inter-community unrest in Israel. .
As reported by the Palestinian authorities, since Monday, at least 126 Palestinians have died, including 31 minors, and 950 have been injured.
This Saturday,
ten people from the same family
were killed in an Israeli bombing, medical sources reported.
Eight children and two women, all belonging to the Abu Hatab family, perished in the Al Shati refugee camp when their three-story building collapsed after the Israeli attack.
The Israeli army announced on Saturday that it had bombed a Hamas "operations office" near the center of Gaza City in nightly attacks on what it called "underground launch sites" for rockets.
It also bombed a "military information center," it reported on Twitter, as well as "ground-to-surface rocket launch centers" and "two terrorist squads."
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces stated that from Friday afternoon until the morning of this Saturday, around
200 launches
were reported
from the Gaza Strip
towards Israeli territory, of which about 30 fell in the enclave. coastal, while the anti-missile system, the
Iron Dome
intercepted more than 100 rockets.
Israel struck Hamas targets in Gaza again.
Photo: REUTERS
Since Monday, when the tensions began, Palestinian groups fired
more than 2,000 rockets at Israel
, killing 9 people, including a minor and a soldier, and have injured 560. According to the army, the anti-missile shield "Iron Dome" has intercepted around 90% of the projectiles.
Despite international calls for a truce, Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that his army would inflict "serious setbacks" on the "terrorist" Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza enclave.
"They are paying for it and they will continue to pay dearly. It is not over yet," he said.
The new conflict erupted after the launch from Gaza of a rocket barrage against Israel in "solidarity" with the more than 700 Palestinians wounded in the riots with the Israeli police in the Esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector occupied by Israel since 1967.
The riots on the esplanade, Islam's third holy place, were the culmination of strong tensions and clashes in East Jerusalem, mainly due to the threat of expulsion of Palestinian families in favor of Jewish settlers in a neighborhood of the Holy City.
Israel began shelling Gaza on Monday in response to rocket fire at Jerusalem by the armed wing of the Islamist Hamas party, which rules the enclave, and other Palestinian armed groups.
In total, Israel has bombed
some 800 targets
, in particular the network of underground tunnels that allow Hamas fighters and leaders to move around, as well as a "terrorist brigade" responsible for the rocket fire.
The shelling and plumes of smoke, visible for miles around, have reduced residential buildings to ruins in the small Palestinian territory where two million Palestinians are crowded.
In the West Bank, from Ramallah to Hebron and throughout the territory occupied by Israel since 1967, clashes between Palestinians and Israelis were replicated.
A Palestinian was killed after attempting to stab a soldier in northern Ramallah, according to the Israeli army, which reported on Saturday a new knife attack attempt during a "violent disturbance" in Nablus.
New nighttime tensions were registered in the Shuafat neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where young Palestinian protesters were repressed by the Israeli police with tear gas.
To all this there was a resurgence of riots between Arabs and Jews in various cities of the country.
About 1,000 policemen have been sent to reinforce security and more than 450 people, Jews and Arabs, have been arrested in recent days.
In Lod, Jews and Arabs lived their fourth night of curfew.
Palestinians protested the Israeli offensive.
Photo: AFP
The Israeli Arab protesters "are a significant minority that undermines the woven ties between Jews and Arabs," Netanyahu declared, announcing the deployment of new forces.
Israeli Arabs are the Palestinians who remained in their land after the creation of Israel in 1948.
Also, on the Israeli-Lebanese border, Israeli soldiers fired at Lebanese protesters who managed to briefly penetrate Israeli territory.
A member of Hezbollah participating in the demonstration was shot dead.
In the night, three rockets were fired from Syria, another Israeli neighbor, without causing any damage.
The UN seeks a way out of the crisis in the Middle East
Faced with the escalation, the UN Security Council is scheduled to meet on Sunday, while the US emissary in charge of Israeli-Palestinian relations, Hady Amr, arrived in Israel on Friday, according to the US embassy.
A diplomatic source quoted by
The Times of Israel
newspaper
confirmed that efforts are being made to negotiate
a ceasefire
between Israel and Hamas, and estimated that there is cautious optimism among the mediators that the parties will reach an agreement in a few days.
Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal told a Turkish news agency that the Gaza terror group is ready for a ceasefire, but has not received a response from Israel.
An Egyptian intelligence official with knowledge of the talks confided to the Associated Press that
Israel rejected an Egyptian proposal
for a one-year truce with Hamas, which if accepted would have started at midnight Thursday.
The official explained that Israel wanted to delay a ceasefire until it could destroy more military capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
GRB
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