In Gaza City, the Israeli military struck a high-rise building that houses the offices for several media organizations, including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera. The Associated Press said that its staff had been asked to evacuate its offices ahead of the strike. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on why the building was hit.
After the office building was targeted, Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said that Tel Aviv and central Israel should “wait for our shocking response.”
The continued violence came as Palestinians readied for mass demonstrations to commemorate the loss of homes when Israel was founded more than 70 years ago, raising the specter of further unrest.
The Israeli military said it had carried out more airstrikes on the enclave into the early hours of Saturday morning in response to more than 2,300 rockets fired toward Israel over the past week.
Health authorities in Gaza said that eight people, including women and children, were killed in a strike at Gaza’s Shati refugee camp. At least 139 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry. An Israeli military spokesman said the incident was being investigated and officials would issue a statement shortly.
Violence between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel continued overnight on Friday. In Jaffa, the father of a12-year-old boy burned in the molotov cocktail attack told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that the family were in their living room when the firebomb came through the window. Israeli police said that an investigation had been opened and that one person was “lightly injured.”
On Saturday, demonstrations were planned in cities and villages across Israel and the West Bank, and at the Lebanese and Jordanian borders. Funerals were also planned for 11 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in clashes in the West Bank on Friday as the area emerged as a new flash point.
Here’s what to know:
- Residents of Tel Aviv rushed for bomb shelters as several salvos of rockets targeted the city. One person died at a building was hit in the city of Ramat Gan, part of Tel Aviv’s wider metropolitan area.
- An Israeli airstrike destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City which housed offices for the Associated Press and Al Jazeera.
- As Israeli continued to strike targets in the densely populated Gaza Strip, the death toll climbed to 139, including 39 children, with about 1,000 wounded, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported.
- Hady Amr, the U.S. envoy for Israel-Palestinian affairs, was set to meet Israeli and Palestinian officials for talks in an attempt to de-escalate the violence.
- Nakba day demonstrations are expected to draw thousands of Palestinians to the streets on Saturday afternoon in cities in the West Bank and Israel.
- Two Arab Israeli children were injured overnight after a molotov cocktail was thrown into their home in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, according to Israeli media and footage from the scene.
- The Palestinian Red Crescent said it treated 1757 injuries in the West Bank and Jerusalem on Friday, including 250 inflicted by live ammunition. The Palestinian Health ministry issued a call for people to donate blood.
- Several people tried to cross into Israel from Lebanon overnight, the Israeli military said, digging into the ground and cutting the border fence in what it called an attempted attack with “great severity.”
This year’s Nakba Day, an annual event to mark the displacement of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, takes place against a tinderbox backdrop of a cycle of street violence and military confrontation in the Gaza Strip.
The spiral of violence, which erupted after a series of anti-Arab demonstrations in Jerusalem and the storming of its al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Israeli security forces over a week ago, has echoes of the days of the country’s two intifadas — mass Palestinian uprisings against Israel.
At midday, sirens sounded in central Ramallah to mark Nakba Day. Sirens also wailed across kibbutz communities near the Gaza strip as Hamas fired more rocket salvos, sending Israelis into their shelters.
“I think for Palestinians it’s less about commemorating Nakba right now and more about commemorating the ongoing Nakba,” said Mariam Barghouti, a Palestinian writer and activist in Ramallah. “That’s the difference this time.”
Hady Amr, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Israel and Palestinian affairs, was due to meet with Israeli and Palestinian officials in the West Bank on Friday. He aims to “reinforce the need to work toward a sustainable calm, recognizing Israel’s right to self-defense,” the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem tweeted. “Israelis and Palestinians deserve equal measures of freedom, security, dignity and prosperity.”
But even if an official cease-fire is brokered between Israel and Hamas, the ethnic violence has also further cleaved at rifts in mixed towns and cities across Israel and spurred protests in the West Bank.
Conflict has bubbled up in areas once known for having Jews and Arabs live side by side in relative calm. Israeli police said it made 15 arrests overnight in the city of Lod, near Tel Aviv, seizing weapons and molotov cocktails. Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a state of emergency after unrest sparked by the killing of a 25-year-old Arab Israeli resident.
Police also entered Kfar Kana to arrest a local Sheikh, Kmal al-Khatib, from his home beside his mosque. A crowd formed to protest his arrest and police fired sound bombs, tear gas, and live and rubber bullets to disperse them, according to Shukri Awadeh, a doctor who tended to the wounded.
More than 80 people were injured, around 40 of them hospitalized and ten of whom remained in serious condition, Awadeh. He questioned why police had not summoned al-Khatib instead of entering a residential area with such a large show of force.
Palestinians also faced off against police in east Jerusalem neighborhoods including Issawiya, Shuafat and Atour, places known for tension, as well in areas like Beit Sfafa where violence has been more rare.
Balousha reported from Gaza City, and Berger from Jerusalem. Steve Hendrix in Jerusalem and Shira Rubin in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiVGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS93b3JsZC8yMDIxLzA1LzE1L2lzcmFlbC1nYXphLWNvbmZsaWN0LWxhdGVzdC11cGRhdGVzL9IBY2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS93b3JsZC8yMDIxLzA1LzE1L2lzcmFlbC1nYXphLWNvbmZsaWN0LWxhdGVzdC11cGRhdGVzLz9vdXRwdXRUeXBlPWFtcA?oc=5
2021-05-15 13:08:00Z
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