Israel conducted an intense aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip hours after US president Joe Biden publicly backed international calls for a ceasefire between the Jewish state and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.
Sixty Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes on what the military described as a network of tunnels, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed the armed forces to “continue striking”.
Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, retaliated with a volley of rockets into Israeli cities after a six-hour overnight lull. Witnesses reported that two buildings were targeted early on Tuesday in Gaza City, the heavily populated urban centre of the blockaded territory, as the fighting stretched into a second week.
Israeli strikes had killed 213 Palestinians, including 61 children and 36 women as of Tuesday, according to the Gaza health ministry. Israeli army officials said 130 of the dead were Hamas combatants, and disputed Gazan estimates that nearly half of the dead were women and children. Israel has reported that 10 were killed from the Hamas attacks, including two children.
Israeli forces shot a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, whom they said attacked soldiers with an explosive device and knife. The Israeli military has killed at least 21 Palestinians in the territory, which is the seat of Fatah, a rival faction to Hamas, since protests broke out across the West Bank on Friday.
A UN agency said on Tuesday that more than 52,000 Palestinians in the walled-in Gaza Strip had been forced from their homes as Israel’s bombardment had destroyed 132 buildings and severely damaged more than 300 others.
Biden spoke to Netanyahu as the US president faced rising criticism from American progressives, including within his own Democratic party, who want the administration to exert more pressure to stop the hostilities.
“The president expressed his support for a ceasefire and discussed US engagement with Egypt and other partners towards that end,” according to a White House readout of the call. Biden also “encouraged Israel to make every effort to ensure the protection of innocent civilians”.
The US blocked a UN Security Council statement calling for de-escalation, cessation of violence and respect for international law, according to two UN diplomats. The decision was the third time Washington has thwarted a statement or softer measures since the violence began.
The UN, Egypt and Qatar have failed to broker a short ceasefire to enable humanitarian aid to be sent into the Palestinian enclave, which has been controlled by Hamas since 2007.
Basem Naim, head of international relations for Hamas, told ABC news that the group had told the UN and Egyptian and Qatari mediators that it was ready to “stop the escalation if the Israelis stop the aggression against our people”.
He added that Hamas wanted Israel to end its plans to evict Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, and remove restrictions on the compound housing al-Aqsa mosque.
The latest crisis was triggered when police used rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades against Palestinians protesting against restrictions at the compound of al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site. More than 600 Palestinians were wounded. The mosque is in a compound in Jerusalem that is known to Jews as Temple Mount and which is sacred to both religions. As tensions escalated, Hamas last week fired rockets deep into Israel, which responded with air strikes on Gaza.
Separately, several rockets were fired towards Israel from Lebanon on Monday, according to UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force on the Lebanon-Israel border. Lebanese state media reported that Israel retaliated with more than two dozen rockets. No casualties were reported.
The incident is the second rocket attack from Lebanon, which is home to thousands of Palestinian refugees, since the recent hostilities began between Israel and Hamas. No damage was inflicted in Israel.
Officials from Hizbollah, the Iran-backed paramilitary group in Lebanon that fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006, have broadly backed Palestinian militants. But the group has not signalled its intention to escalate the latest conflict.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiP2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2NkODM1MDFiLTdmYzUtNDA4Ny1hYzViLWQyMTMwMjhhZjU3YtIBP2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2NkODM1MDFiLTdmYzUtNDA4Ny1hYzViLWQyMTMwMjhhZjU3Yg?oc=5
2021-05-18 08:42:50Z
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