GAZA/JERUSALEM • Palestinian militants fired more rockets into Israel's commercial heartland yesterday as Israel kept up a punishing bombing campaign in Gaza and massed tanks and troops on the enclave's border.
Days of violence between Jewish Israelis and the country's Arab minority worsened overnight, with synagogues attacked and fighting breaking out on the streets of some communities.
With concern growing that the violence that flared on Monday could spiral out of control, the United States is sending an envoy, Mr Hady Amr, to the region.
But efforts to end the worst hostilities in years appear so far to have made no progress. At least 83 people have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated on Monday, medics said, further straining hospitals already under heavy pressure amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hamas yesterday said it fired a large rocket at Israel's Eilat Ramon Airport, where incoming passenger flights were diverted after waves of rocket launches towards the main airport near Tel Aviv.
The Islamist group has fired more than 1,600 rockets towards Israel since Monday.
In the latest Palestinian rocket attacks, one rocket crashed into a building near Israel's commercial capital of Tel Aviv, injuring five Israelis, the police said.
Sirens blared in cities across southern Israel, sending thousands running for shelters.
Seven people have been killed in Israel, the country's military said.
Israel has prepared combat troops along the Gaza border and is in "various stages of preparing ground operations", a military spokesman said, a move that recalls similar incursions during Israel-Gaza wars in 2014 and 2008-2009.
The health authorities in Gaza said they were investigating the deaths of several people overnight who they said may have inhaled poisonous gas.
US President Joe Biden said he hoped fighting "will be closing down sooner than later".
A British minister has urged Israel and Hamas to "take a step back" from the escalation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to "continue acting to strike at the military capabilities of Hamas" and other Gaza groups. Hamas is regarded as a terrorist group by the US and Israel.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces killed a senior Hamas commander and bombed several buildings, including high-rises and a bank, which Israel said was linked to the faction's activities.
The Israeli military said it has struck Gaza targets over 600 times.
Hamas signalled defiance, with its leader Ismail Haniyeh saying: "The confrontation with the enemy is open-ended."
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israeli police clashes with Palestinians near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Turkey, whose hosting of Hamas leaders in Istanbul in recent years has contributed to a falling out with Israel, called on Muslim countries to show a united and clear stance over the Israel-Gaza violence.
In the fighting inside Israel, where some in the 21 per cent Arab minority have mounted violent pro-Palestinian protests, attacks by Jews on Arabs passing by in ethnically mixed areas have worsened.
Jewish and Arab groups attacked people and damaged shops, hotels and cars overnight.
In Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, dozens of Jews beat and kicked a man thought to be an Arab as he lay on the ground.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called for an end to "this madness".
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
