Palestine conflict: Unrest spreads to West Bank, Israeli air raids continue
Gaza City: Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip entered its sixth consecutive day, with air raids hitting a refugee camp where at least 10 Palestinians – eight children, two women – were killed and flattening a high-rise building housing the offices of media organisations, including Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Palestinians on Saturday gathered in parts of the occupied West Bank to protest against continued Israeli occupation and the ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
At least 140 Palestinians, including 39 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Monday. Some 950 others have been wounded. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have killed at least 13 Palestinians.
At least nine people in Israel have also been killed, with one new death reported on Saturday in Ramat Gan. The Israeli army said hundreds of rockets have been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.
Thousands of Palestinian families are taking shelter in United Nations-run schools in northern Gaza to escape Israeli artillery fire. The UN has said it estimates approximately 10,000 Palestinians have left their homes in Gaza amid the Israeli offensive.
The latest outburst of violence began in Jerusalem and has spread across the region, with Jewish-Arab clashes and rioting in mixed cities of Israel. There were also widespread Palestinian protests Friday in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces shot and killed 11 people.
The spiraling violence has raised fears of a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising at a time when there have been no peace talks in years.
Palestinians were set to mark Nakba day Saturday, when they commemorate the estimated 700,000 people who fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation, raising the possibility of more unrest.
US diplomat Hady Amr arrived in the region on Friday as part of Washington’s efforts to de-escalate the conflict and the UN Security Council was set to meet Sunday.
But Israel turned down an Egyptian proposal for a one-year truce that Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers had accepted, an Egyptian official said Friday on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations.
Since Monday night, Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, which has pounded the Gaza Strip with strikes. In Gaza, at least 126 people have been killed, including 31 children and 20 women; in Israel, seven people have been killed, including a 6-year-old boy and a soldier.
Rocket fire from Gaza and Israel’s bombardment of the blockaded Palestinian territory continued into early Saturday, when an airstrike on a three-story house on the edge of a refugee camp in Gaza City killed at least seven Palestinians the highest number of fatalities in a single hit.
Said Alghoul, who lives nearby, said Israeli warplanes dropped at least three bombs on the home without warning residents in advance. I could not endure and ran back to my home, he said. Rescuers called a bulldozer to dig through the rubble for survivors or bodies.
Shortly afterward, Hamas said it fired a salvo of rockets at southern Israel in response to the airstrike.
A furious Israeli barrage early Friday killed a family of six in their house and sent thousands fleeing to U.N.-run shelters. The military said the operation involved 160 warplanes dropping some 80 tons of explosives over the course of 40 minutes and succeeded in destroying a vast tunnel network used by Hamas.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the military aims to minimize collateral damage in striking military targets. But measures it takes in other strikes, such as warning shots to get civilians to leave, were not feasible this time.
Military correspondents in Israeli media said the military believed dozens of militants were killed inside the tunnels. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups have confirmed 20 deaths in their ranks, but the Israeli military said the real number is far higher.
Gaza’s infrastructure, already in widespread disrepair because of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas seized power in 2007, showed signs of breaking down further, compounding residents’ misery.
Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian families have taken shelter in United Nations-run schools in northern Gaza to escape Israeli artillery fire. The UN has said it estimates approximately 10,000 Palestinians have left their homes in Gaza amid the Israeli offensive.
Despite international calls for an immediate halt of all hostilities, including from United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged the offensive will continue “as needed to restore calm in the state of Israel”.
Hamas fired another barrage of rockets towards Israel, hitting the city of Ashdod early on Saturday.
Meanwhile, violence is brewing between Israeli settlers and Palestinian citizens in the occupied West Bank, as well as in Israel.
At least 11 Palestinians have also been killed by Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank.
Rockets fired from Gaza early on Saturday hit a building in Israel’s Ashdod, according to the Jerusalem Post, adding that no one was reported injured in the incident, although a multi-story building sustained some damage.
Hamas earlier said that the latest barrage of rockets were in retaliation to the deadly Israeli air raid that killed several people, including children, at the Shati refugee camp in Gaza.
Israel’s public broadcaster, Kann, also reported that rockets have also been fired in Ashkelon and Shephelah in Israel.
At least seven Palestinians, including six children, are reported killed following another Israeli air assault on a home in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza.
About 20 people are also believed to be trapped, or buried under the rubble, after Israel launched five missile strikes early on Saturday.
Safa Press agency posted on social media an image showing a pile of concrete debris as several men tried to dig through the rubble of the destroyed structure. (AP/Al-Jazeera)
Press Trust of India
