“Today is Shabbat, the day of rest, but the people of southern Israel have not had a chance. For the 5th consecutive morning, civilians are waking up and running to shelters to protect themselves from rocket fire coming from Gaza, ”tweeted this Saturday shortly after 8 am French time, Tsahal, the Israeli army. The nocturnal battle has given way to the battle of the image. Do everything to ensure that public opinion leans in its favor. At almost the same time, Palestinian paramedical sources claimed that ten members of the same family had been killed by a bomb dropped by an Israeli fighter plane on a small building in the Al Shati refugee camp.
At least 132 people have been killed in Gaza since Monday, including 32 children and 21 women, and 950 others injured, Palestinian medical officials said.
There are nine dead in Israel, including two children, and more than 560 injured, according to Israeli authorities.
The toll would have been much worse if the "Iron Dome", Israel's anti-missile shield, had not intercepted much of the nearly 2,000 rockets launched into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip.
On Friday evening, three rockets were even fired into Israeli territory from Syria, without causing damage.
" It's not over yet "
Despite international calls for de-escalation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that his army will inflict "serious setbacks" on the "terrorist" movement Hamas which controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
“They are paying and will continue to pay dearly.
It's not over yet ".
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Early on Saturday, the IDF said it had hit a Hamas "operation office" near the center of Gaza City, with additional nightly strikes targeting what the military called "launch sites". underground 'rockets.
It also hit "a military intelligence site," she said on Twitter, as well as "surface-to-surface rocket launch sites" and "two terrorist squads."
In response to the more than 2,000 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, we hit:
🔺 a military intelligence site
🔺 rocket
launch sites
🔺
surface-to-surface rocket launch sites
🔺 2 terrorist squads
Hamas pays the price for its terrorism.
- IDF (@Tsahal_IDF) May 15, 2021
The Palestinian Ministry of Religious Affairs said Israeli planes destroyed a mosque.
A military spokesperson said the military was verifying this information.
Since Monday, when the Jewish state began bombing Gaza in response to rocket fire from Hamas and another armed jihadist group, 800 targets have been hit.
Civilian casualties are numerous, due to the density of Gaza: two million Palestinians are crammed into this small territory of 360 km2.
Israel has long accused Hamas of concealing weapons and strategic sites in schools, near mosques, and in apartment buildings.
In fact, the explosions and their smoke mushrooms visible from miles away left entire city blocks in ruins.
Israel launched daytime attacks on Friday, the army said, to destroy several kilometers of these tunnels that allow Hamas to move weapons.
Violence in Nablus and Ramallah
Clashes in mixed Jewish and Arab communities in Israel continued Friday evening, including in the Shuafat neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where young masked Palestinian protesters set fire to debris.
Police responded with tear gas.
A Palestinian was shot dead after attempting to stab a soldier north of Ramallah, said the IDF, which reported early Saturday of another attempted knife attack during "a violent riot" in Nablus.
Yesterday, 52 people were arrested in mixed towns, bringing the number of arrested since Monday to more than 450 Jews and Arabs.
Faced with the escalation, the UN Security Council is due to meet on Sunday. Egypt is deploying, with Qatar, regional efforts, including pressure on Hamas, to obtain a ceasefire. "The talks took a real and serious course on Friday," a Palestinian official said. "Mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations are stepping up their contacts with all parties to try to restore calm, but an agreement has not yet been reached."