Israel fires at Gaza, targeting militant tunnels; 13 people killed
Rockets launched against Israel in retaliation; UN Security Council to discuss violence
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Palestinians surveying the damage after their homes were destroyed by Israeli air strikes in Beit Hanun town in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday. At least 122 people have been killed in Gaza and 900 others wounded, Palestinian medical officials said. The eight dead in Israel were a soldier patrolling the Gaza border, six Israeli civilians and an Indian worker, the Israeli authorities said.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
JERUSALEM • Israel pummelled Gaza with artillery fire and air strikes yesterday, killing 13 people including three children, local health officials said, sweeping aside international appeals for a de-escalation of violence.
Israel targeted Palestinian militant tunnels to try to stop persistent rocket attacks on Israeli towns.
The largest Israeli operation against a specific target since the fighting began included 160 aircraft as well as tanks and artillery firing from outside the Gaza Strip, Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said.
Rocket barrages against southern Israel swiftly followed the 40-minute pre-dawn offensive on the fifth day of the most serious fighting between Israel and Gaza militants since 2014.
A woman and her three children were among the 13 people killed in Gaza, health officials in the north of the enclave said, and their bodies were recovered from the rubble of their home.
Gaza's ruling Hamas group launched the rocket attacks at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israeli police clashes with Palestinians near Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
At least 122 people have been killed in Gaza, including 31 children and 20 women, and 900 others have been wounded, Palestinian medical officials said.
The eight dead in Israel were a soldier patrolling the Gaza border, six Israeli civilians - including two children - and an Indian worker, the Israeli authorities said.
The Israeli military has put the number of militants killed in Israeli attacks at between 80 and 90. It said that so far, some 1,800 rockets have been fired at Israel, of which 430 fell short in Gaza or malfunctioned.
Security sources said Egypt was leading diplomacy aimed at securing a ceasefire, but neither side appeared amenable so far.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there were reports of more than 200 housing units destroyed or severely damaged and hundreds of people seeking shelter in schools in northern Gaza.
Lieutenant-Colonel Conricus told foreign reporters: "What we were targeting is an elaborate system of tunnels that spans underneath Gaza, mostly in the north, but not limited to, and is a network that the operatives of Hamas use in order to move, in order to hide, for cover."
Israel struck over 150 targets in the northern Gaza Strip overnight to destroy kilometres of underground tunnels dug by Hamas, the military said.
The barrage was intended to send a message that Israel will deal with the supposedly secretive infrastructure, but was not necessarily a sign that an invasion is imminent, said Mr Ram Yavne, a retired general in Israel's army.
"Israel's considerations to invade or not are much broader than the tunnels," he added. "Most signs point in the opposite direction because neither the public nor the politicians want a ground war."
The army said early yesterday that no soldiers had been sent into Gaza.
Trouble loomed on other fronts as well. Three rockets launched from Lebanon crashed into the Mediterranean off Israel's northern coast late on Thursday, raising the spectre of a second battleground with Iran-backed Lebanese Hizbollah militants.
Israel's military said tanks fired warning shots towards people who briefly crossed the fenced border from Lebanon and lit fires yesterday. And thousands of Jordanian protesters gathered near a crossing into Israel yesterday in support of Hamas, burning Israeli flags and calling for the expulsion of Israeli diplomats from Jordan. Others demonstrated in central Amman.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that the campaign "will take more time". Israeli officials said Hamas, Gaza's most powerful Islamist militant group, must be dealt a strong deterring blow before any ceasefire.
"The last word hasn't been said and this campaign will continue as long as necessary," Mr Netanyahu wrote on Facebook.
United States President Joe Biden called on Thursday for a de-escalation of the violence, saying he wanted to see a significant reduction in rocket attacks.
Defending the Israeli government's response to Palestinian rocket barrages, Mr Biden said he has not seen a "significant overreaction".
The United Nations Security Council will publicly discuss tomorrow the worsening violence, diplomats said after the US had objected to a meeting yesterday.
Dozens of mourners took part in a funeral of six people - members of two families whose houses were hit by Israeli air strikes on Thursday - in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
Holding the cloth-bound body of his 19-month-old nephew in his arms, Mr Khamees al-Rantissi asked: "What was this child doing? What threat did he pose for the state of Israel?"
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
