Heavy air strikes and rocket fire in the Israel-Gaza conflict claimed more lives on both sides on Tuesday as tensions flared up during protests against the Palestinian “Day of Anger” in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The UN Security Council should hold an emergency meeting to end the fighting, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that Israel would continue its military attack on the coastal enclave “as long as necessary”.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces and demonstrators clashed at several hot spots in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and were hospitalized after the Palestinians took to the streets in solidarity with their beleaguered colleagues in Gaza.
Israel’s intense bombing campaign against Gaza has killed 213 Palestinians, including 61 children, and injured more than 1,400 people in Gaza in more than a week in the fight against the Islamist group Hamas, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
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The death toll on the Israeli side rose to 12 when a volley of rockets fired by Hamas in the southern Eshkol region killed two Thai nationals who worked in a factory and wounded several others, police said.
Israeli Strikes that again sent fireballsDebris and black smoke in the sky have leveled houses and multi-story towers, cratered streets and left two million Palestinians in Gaza desperate for redress.
“They destroyed our home, but I don’t know why they targeted us,” said Nazmi al-Dahdouh, 70, from Gaza City, who was shocked by what he called “a terrible, violent night.” .
The humanitarian crisis deepened in the impoverished strip, from which Hamas has fired nearly 3,500 rockets at Israel since May 10, and forced people living near Gaza into bomb shelters, often around the clock.
But a convoy of international aid trucks rolling across a border crossing from Israel to Gaza, Kerem Shalom, was halted when Israel quickly closed it again and led a mortar attack on the area.
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The UN Security Council meeting, the fourth since the conflict escalated, came after the United States, a key ally of Israel, blocked the adoption of a joint statement ending the violence on Monday for the third time in a week was requested.
Crisis diplomacy
US President Joe Biden, who refused to join other world leaders and much of his own Democratic Party in calling for an immediate end to hostilities, told Netanyahu on Monday evening that he supported a ceasefire but was not calling for a ceasefire.
France and Egypt are pushing for a ceasefire agreement, while Qatar and Egypt work through a different channel through the United Nations.
The conflict could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe, according to the UN Almost 40,000 Palestinians were displaced and 2,500 have lost their homes.
Fighter jets have hit what the Israeli military calls the “subway,” their name for Hamas’ underground tunnels, some of which Israel has previously recognized as running partially through civilian areas.
A strike on Monday disabled Gaza’s only Covid-19 testing laboratory, the Ministry of Health said, and the Qatar Red Crescent said a strike damaged one of its offices in the enclave.
The rate of positive coronavirus tests in Gaza is among the highest in the world at 28 percent.
Hospitals in the area, which has been under Israeli blockade for nearly 15 years, have been overwhelmed by patients and blackouts are frequent.
Speaking at an air base in southern Israel Said Netanyahu Hamas and Islamic Jihad had “received blows they did not expect”.
“We took them many years ago,” said the prime minister. “We will continue as long as necessary to restore … calm to the citizens of Israel.”
“Day of wrath”
Palestinians across the West Bank and Israel-annexed East Jerusalem mobilized protests and a general strike Tuesday that closed non-essential businesses to aid those bombed in Gaza.
The Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had called for a “Day of Wrath,” a call that was repeated in Arab and ethnically mixed cities in Israel.
“We are here to speak out and stand with the people in Gaza who are being bombed,” Ramallah protester Aya Dabour told AFP.
Israel’s army said troops came under fire north of Ramallah. It was said that two soldiers suffered leg injuries and were hospitalized.
In another incident, a 25-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops in Al-Bireh, north of Ramallah, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
The ministry reported that 70 people were hospitalized due to clashes with Israeli forces across the West Bank, five of them in serious condition.
Earlier in the day, an assailant attempting to attack soldiers in the city of Hebron in the West Bank was shot dead.
Tension re-emerged in East Jerusalem’s hotspot, Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian protesters faced police who used stun grenades and “skunk water” cannons to disperse protesters.
The The Israel-Gaza conflict was triggered After clashes at Jerusalem’s flashpoint, Al-Aqsa Mosque – one of the holiest places in Islam – on May 7, Israeli forces clashed with Palestinians and threw stones.
This followed a crackdown on protests against planned evictions of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
Israel has tried to curb violence between Jews and Israeli Arabs, as well as rioting in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinian authorities say Israeli forces have killed 22 Palestinians since May 10.
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