Relentless rocket fire and rioting in mixed Jewish-Arab towns fueled growing fears Wednesday that violence between Israel and Palestinians that has claimed 50 lives could spiral into “full-scale war.”
Palestinian militants have launched more than 1,000 rockets since Monday, said Israel’s army, which has launched hundreds of air strikes on Hamas and other Islamist groups in the crowded costal enclave of Gaza.
The most intense hostilities in seven years have killed at least 43 people in Gaza, including 13 children, two Palestinians in the West Bank, and five Israelis, triggered by weekend unrest at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
As world powers voiced growing alarm and the UN Security Council readied for another emergency meeting on the bloody crisis, the UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland warned that “we’re escalating toward a full-scale war.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a state of emergency in the mixed Jewish-Arab Israeli city of Lod, where police said “wide-scale riots erupted among some of the Arab residents.”Volume 90% There were fears of widening civil unrest as protesters waving Palestinian flags burnt cars and properties, clashed with Israeli police and attacked Jewish motorists in several Jewish-Arab towns across Israel.
Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have launched more than 1,000 rockets, Israel’s army said, including hundreds at Tel Aviv, where air sirens wailed overnight.
Of these, 850 rockets have hit in Israel or been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, while the rest have crashed inside Gaza, the army said.
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes at Gaza, the Israeli-blockaded strip of two million people that Hamas controls, targeting what the army described as Palestinian military sites.
At least 230 Palestinians have been wounded, many rescued from the smoldering ruins of buildings. On the Israeli side, more than 100 people have been injured, as residents across the Jewish state have been ordered to seek shelter.
In Gaza City, people sifted through debris after an Israeli air strike destroyed a 12-story building near the coast.
Hamas said the tower block had been a residential building. AFP reporters said it also housed the offices of several Hamas officials. Volume 90%
Five members of a single family were killed by an Israeli strike in northern Gaza Tuesday, including young brothers Ibrahim and Marwan, who were filling sacks of straw at the time.
“We were laughing and having fun when suddenly they began to bomb us. Everything around us caught fire,” their cousin, also called Ibrahim, told AFP.
“I saw my cousins set alight and torn to pieces,” said the 14-year-old, breaking down in tears.
In Israel’s central city of Lod, a man and a girl were killed Wednesday by rocket fire from Gaza. Israel’s foreign ministry identified one of the dead as 16-year-old Nadin Awad, an Arab Israeli.
Her cousin, Ahmad Ismail, told public broadcaster Kan that he was near Nadin when she was killed alongside her father Khalil Awad, 52.
“I was at home, we heard the noise of the rocket. It happened so quickly. Even if we had wanted to run somewhere, we don’t have a safe room,” said Ismail. An Israeli woman was killed when rockets hit Rishon Letzion near Tel Aviv’s southern outskirts. In Ashkelon, a town near Gaza which Hamas threatened to turn into “hell,” rockets fired by militants killed two women Tuesday.