Israel and Gaza: New Night of Violence in the Middle East

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Explosion after an air strike in the Gaza Strip

Photo: MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

The situation in the Middle East has been escalating for a week and Monday night did not bring any relief to the situation.

Israel continued its air strikes in the Gaza Strip after dark.

Dozens of bombs had been dropped over the densely populated coastal strip, reported AFP reporters.

The Israeli army said fighter jets were targeting "terrorist targets" in the Gaza Strip.

The total number of attacks since the start of the new escalation was last put at around 650.

For its part, the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas continued to fire rockets at Israel.

Ten Israelis have been killed since May 10;

at least 197 people died on the Palestinian side.

On Sunday alone, more than 40 people were killed on the Palestinian side, more than on any other day in the recent escalation in the Middle East.

According to the Israeli military, around 3,100 rockets have so far been launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip.

The iron dome defense system intercepted around 1210 missiles, as the army announced on Twitter on Sunday evening.

Around 450 of the fired rockets fell in the Gaza Strip itself.

The system detects approaching projectiles using a radar device and launches an interceptor missile to destroy the enemy projectile in the air, if possible before it hits.

Warning from the UN - but no joint declaration

UN Secretary General António Guterres warned of uncontrollable consequences for the entire Arabian Peninsula.

The conflict has the "potential to trigger an unstoppable security and humanitarian crisis and to promote extremism not only in the occupied Palestinian territory and in Israel, but in the entire region," he said in New York.

Before that, the UN Security Council had once again failed to agree on a joint declaration on the escalating conflict.

According to diplomats, the US is blocking a joint statement, as it did in the two previous closed meetings.

The US is Israel's closest ally.

They are working with Palestinians and Israelis, according to President Joe Biden, to achieve "permanent calm."

"We also believe that Palestinians and Israelis alike deserve a life of safety and security," he said in a video message broadcast on Sunday at the end of Islamic Lent.

In addition, they should "enjoy an equal measure of freedom, prosperity and democracy".

(Read more about the US course in the newly flared up Middle East conflict here)

Serious allegations after the attack on the media company

After the Israeli rocket attack on a building with media offices in the Gaza Strip, the organization Reporters Without Borders called the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The deliberate attack on media offices constitutes a "war crime", said the organization's secretary general, Christophe Deloire, on Sunday.

This not only causes "unacceptable material damage".

These attacks also make it more difficult for the media to report a conflict "which directly affects the civilian population."

The 13-story building in the Gaza Strip, in which the US news agency Associated Press and the Qatari television broadcaster al-Jazeera had their offices, had been destroyed by Israeli rockets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the building as an "absolutely legitimate target" in an interview with the US broadcaster CBS News.

The Israeli army justified the attack on the building with the fact that there were also military installations of the secret service of the radical Islamic Hamas.

The owner of the house claims to have been warned by the Israeli secret service an hour before the attack and asked to evacuate the building.

Demos in Germany under observation

There were numerous pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Germany over the weekend.

Several of these demos led to riots and in some cases also to anti-Semitic incidents.

The latter have caused consternation at home and abroad and calls for a quick response.

"The pictures are unbearable," said Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble of the "Bild" newspaper (Monday).

The conflict will not be resolved in Germany "and we will not allow it to be carried out here - at the expense of Jewish Germans".

Of course, one can sharply criticize Israel's policy and protest loudly against it - "but there is no justification for anti-Semitism, hatred and violence".

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer recently announced that he wanted to use the "full rigor of the rule of law" against anti-Semitism.

"We will not tolerate Israeli flags burning on German soil and attacking Jewish facilities," he said.

The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, expressed deep concern about anti-Jewish protests in Germany.

"It is disturbing to see these pictures," said Issacharoff on Sunday evening of the "Bild" newspaper, referring to "unbelievable anti-Semitic statements" at the rallies.

jok / dpa / AFP