World
Escalating Mideast violence bears hallmarks of 2014 Gaza war
Rockets streamed out of Gaza and Israel pounded the territory with airstrikes early Wednesday as the most severe outbreak of violence since the 2014 war took on many hallmarks of that devastating 50-day conflict, with no endgame in sight.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers and other militant groups have fired barrages of hundreds of rockets that at times have overwhelmed Israel’s missile defenses, causing air raid sirens and explosions to echo across Tel Aviv, Israel’s biggest metropolitan area, and other cities.
Israeli airstrikes have leveled two apartment towers in the Gaza Strip, where 2 million Palestinians have lived under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas took power in 2007. Warning shots have allowed civilians to evacuate the buildings, but the material losses will be immense. Israel faced heavy criticism over the tactic during the 2014 war.
Just after daybreak Wednesday, Israel unleashed dozens of airstrikes in the course of a few minutes, targeting police and security installations, witnesses said. A wall of dark gray smoke rose over Gaza City. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said airstrikes destroyed the central police headquarters in Gaza City, a compound with several buildings.
Read:Israel, Hamas escalate heavy fighting with no end in sight
The death toll in Gaza rose to 35 Palestinians, including 12 children and three women, according to the Health Ministry. Some 233 people were wounded. Five Israelis, including three women and a child, were killed by rocket fire Tuesday and early Wednesday, and dozens of people were wounded.
The Israeli military said militants have fired more 1,050 rockets since the conflict began, with 200 of them falling short and landing inside Gaza. The military said it also shot down a drone that entered Israel from Gaza. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said two infantry brigades were sent to the area, indicating preparations for a possible ground invasion.
Samah Haboub, a mother of four in Gaza, said she was thrown across her bedroom in a “moment of horror” by an airstrike on an apartment tower next door. She and her children, aged three to 14, ran down the stairway of their apartment block along with other residents, many of them screaming and crying.
“There is almost no safe place in Gaza,” she said.
The destruction of apartment apartment towers was among several tactics used during the 2014 war that are now the subject of an investigation by the International Criminal Court into possible war crimes. Israel is not a member of the court and has rejected the probe.
In a brief statement, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she had noted “with great concern” the escalation of violence in the region and “the possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statute” that established the court.
Conricus said Israeli forces have strict rules of engagement and follow international laws on armed conflict. “We are definitely very mindful of civilian casualties in Gaza and we want to minimize them,” he said. “That’s the priority.”
The latest eruption of violence began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed police tactics during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers ignited protests and clashes with police. A focal point was the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. The conflicts ended after regional and international powers convinced both sides to accept an informal truce.
While the violence has been widely condemned, there is no sign that either side is willing to back down. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to expand the offensive, saying “this will take time.”
Read:Netanyahu warns Hamas, says Gaza operation 'will take time'
The unrest in Jerusalem has spread across Israel itself, with an outbreak of communal violence in mixed Jewish-Arab communities, as Hamas has called for a full-scale Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The last such uprising also began with violence at the Al-Aqsa mosque, in 2000, and lasted more than five years.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the 35 dead include 12 children and 3 women, with another 233 people wounded. Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the targeting of residential neighborhoods left people “in a state of panic.”
In the Israeli city of Lod, a 52-year-old man and his 16-year-old daughter were killed early Wednesday when a rocket had landed in the courtyard of their one-story home. Their car parked outside was wrecked and the interior of the house was filled by debris.
Lod also saw heavy clashes after thousands of mourners joined a funeral for an Arab man killed by a suspected Jewish gunman the previous night. The crowd fought with police, and set a synagogue and some 30 vehicles, including a police car, on fire, Israeli media reported. Paramedics said a 56-year-old man was seriously hurt after his car was pelted with stones.
“An intifada erupted in Lod, you have to bring in the army,” the city’s mayor, Yair Revivo, said. Authorities have declared a state of emergency and ordered the redeployment of nine paramilitary border police companies from the occupied West Bank as reinforcements.
In neighboring Ramle, ultra-nationalist Jewish demonstrators were filmed attacking cars belonging to Arabs. In the northern port town of Acre, protesters torched a Jewish-owned restaurant and hotel. Police said they arrested more than 150 people involved in “disturbances and riots” overnight in northern and central Israel.
Confrontations erupted last weekend at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is the third-holiest site in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism. Over four days, Israeli police fired tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinians in the compound who hurled stones and chairs at the forces. At times, police fired stun grenades into the carpeted mosque.
On Monday evening, Hamas began firing rockets from Gaza. From there on, the escalation was rapid.
In a televised address, Hamas’ exiled leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said Israel bore responsibility. “It’s the Israeli occupation that set Jerusalem on fire, and the flames reached Gaza,” he said.
Hamas has not commented on Israel’s claims that it has killed a number of senior militants. Islamic Jihad confirmed that three senior commanders were killed in a strike on their hideout in a Gaza City apartment building.
The Israeli military on Wednesday released footage of an airstrike on what it said was the house of Salih Dahman, a “high-ranking operative” in Hamas, where weapons were stored.
Earlier, the military said it struck a building where Hassan Qahwaji and Wael Issa, two senior members of Hamas’ military intelligence wing, were present. Hamas activists tweeted that the two were killed in the strike in Gaza City, along with a woman and her son.
Netanyahu said Israel had attacked hundreds of targets. The fiercest attack was a set of airstrikes that brought down an entire 12-story building. The building housed important Hamas offices, as well as a gym and some start-up businesses. Israel fired a series of warning shots before demolishing the building, allowing people to flee and there were no casualties.
Israeli aircraft heavily damaged another Gaza City building early Wednesday. The nine-story structure housed residential apartments, medical companies and a dental clinic. A drone fired five warning rockets before the bombing. Israel said the building housed Hamas intelligence offices and the group’s command responsible for planning attacks on Israeli targets in the occupied West Bank.
Read:Gaza militants, children among 24 dead as Israel hits Hamas
Fighter jets struck the building again after journalists and rescuers had gathered around. There was no immediate word on casualties. The high-rise stood 200 meters (650 feet) away from the Associated Press bureau in Gaza City, and smoke and debris reached the office.
Soon after the bombing, Hamas announced that it would resume its attacks, and fired 100 rockets at the Israeli desert town of Beersheba. Hamas said the renewed barrage was in response to the strike on the building.
Diplomats sought to intervene, with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations working to deliver a cease-fire. All three serve as mediators between Israel and Hamas.
The U.N. Security Council planned to hold its second closed emergency meeting in three days Wednesday on the escalating violence, an indication of growing international concern. Council diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private, said the U.N.’s most powerful body did not issue a statement because of U.S. concerns that it could escalate tensions.
Scientists race to study variants in India as cases explode
A potentially worrisome variant of the coronavirus detected in India may spread more easily. But the country is behind in doing the kind of testing needed to track it and understand it better.
On Monday, the World Health Organization designated the new version of the virus a “variant of concern” based on preliminary research, alongside those that were first detected in Britain, South Africa and Brazil but have spread to other countries.
“We need much more information about this virus variant,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19. “We need more sequencing, targeted sequencing to be done and to be shared in India and elsewhere so that we know how much of this virus is circulating.”
Read: Indian COVID variant: Why is it more deadly? How is it affecting the neighboring countries?
Viruses mutate constantly, and the surge in infections here has resulted in more opportunities for new versions to emerge.
But India was slow to start the genetic monitoring needed to see if those changes were happening and if they were making the coronavirus more infectious or deadly.
Such variants also need to be monitored to see if mutations help the virus escape the immune system, potentially leading to reinfections or making vaccines less effective. For now, the WHO stressed that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing disease and death in people infected with the variant.
Indian scientists say their work has been hindered by bureaucratic obstacles and the government’s reluctance to share vital data. India is sequencing around 1% of its total cases, and not all of the results are uploaded to the global database of coronavirus genomes.
When there isn’t enough sequencing, there will be blind spots and more worrisome mutations could go undetected until they’re widespread, said Alina Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard who is tracking global sequencing efforts.
Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said: “It has all the hallmarks of the virus that we should be worried about.”
First detected in the coastal Maharashtra state last year, the new variant has now been found in samples in 19 of the 27 states surveyed. Meanwhile a variant first detected in Britain has declined in India in the past 45 days.
Indian health officials have cautioned that it is too soon to attribute the nation’s surge solely to such variants. Experts point out that the spread was catalyzed by government decisions to not pause religious gatherings and crowded election rallies.
Read:Across faiths, US volunteers mobilize for India crisis
Dr. Gagandeep Kang, who studies microorganisms at Christian Medical College at Vellore in southern India, said researchers need to figure out if the variant is capable of infecting those who previously had COVID-19 and, if so, whether it could result in severe disease.
“I don’t get why people don’t see this as important,” she said.
Sequencing efforts in India have been haphazard. The country uploads 0.49 sequences per 1,000 cases to GISAID, a global data sharing effort, Chan said. The U.S., which had its own troubles with genetic monitoring, uploads about 10 in 1,000, while the U.K. does so for about 82 per 1,000 cases.
Late last year, Indian government institutions were ordered to buy domestic raw materials wherever possible, in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of turning India “self-reliant.” This proved impossible, since all materials for sequencing were imported, resulting in more paperwork, said Anurag Agarwal, the director of the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology. The obstacles were most pronounced between September and December, he said, but his lab was able to find workarounds and continued sequencing.
Other labs didn’t, and scientists said that should have been when India ramped up its sequencing, because cases were declining at the time.
Even after a federal effort started in Jan. 18, bringing together 10 labs that can sequence 7,500 samples weekly, the actual work didn’t start until mid-February due to other logistical issues, said Dr. Shahid Jameel, a virologist who chairs the scientific advisory group advising the consortium.
By then, India’s cases had begun spiking.
Read:11 die in India hospital due to disruption in oxygen supply
Jameel said India has sequenced around 20,000 samples, but only 15,000 were publicly reported because some were missing vital data. Until late last month, a third of the samples sent by states were unusable, he said.
And now, the raging virus has infected many of the staff in the labs doing the work.
“Many of our labs are facing this problem,” he said.
Israel, Hamas escalate heavy fighting with no end in sight
Israel stepped up its attacks on the Gaza Strip, flattening a high-rise building used by the Hamas militant group and killing at least three militants in their hideouts on Tuesday as Palestinian rockets rained down almost nonstop on parts of Israel.
It was the heaviest fighting between the bitter enemies since 2014, and it showed no signs of slowing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to expand the offensive, while Gaza militants unleashed a fierce late-night barrage of rockets that set off air-raid sirens and explosions throughout the densely populated Tel Aviv metropolitan area.
Just after daybreak Wednesday, Israel unleashed dozens of airstrikes in the course of a few minutes, targeting police and security installations, witnesses said. A wall of dark gray smoke rose over Gaza City. Iyad al-Bozum, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, said airstrikes destroyed the central police headquarters in Gaza City, a compound with several buildings.
Read:Netanyahu warns Hamas, says Gaza operation 'will take time'
Five Israelis, including three women and a child, were killed by rocket fire Tuesday and early Wednesday, and dozens of people wounded. The death toll in Gaza rose to 35 Palestinians, including 10 children, according to the Health Ministry. Over 200 people were wounded.
In the West Bank, meanwhile, a 26-year-old Palestinian was killed during clashes with Israeli troops that entered al-Fawar refugee camp in southern Hebron, the ministry said.
In another sign of widening unrest, demonstrations erupted in Arab communities across Israel, where protesters set dozens of vehicles on fire in confrontations with police.
The fighting between Israel and Hamas was the most intense since a 50-day war in the summer of 2014. In just over 24 hours, the current round of violence, sparked by religious tensions in the contested city of Jerusalem, increasingly resembled that devastating war.
The booms of Israeli airstrikes and hisses of outgoing rocket fire could be heard in Gaza throughout the day, and large plumes of smoke from targeted buildings rose into the air. Israel resumed a policy of airstrikes aimed at killing wanted militants and began to take down entire buildings — a tactic that drew heavy international criticism in 2014.
In Israel, the nonstop barrages of rocket fire left long streaks of white smoke in their wake, while the explosions of anti-rocket interceptors boomed overhead. Air-raid sirens wailed throughout the day, sending panicked residents scurrying for cover.
In a nationally televised address, Netanyahu said that Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant groups “have paid, and I tell you here, will pay a heavy price for their aggression.”
He claimed that Israel had killed dozens of militants and inflicted heavy damage on hundreds of targets.
“This campaign will take time,” he said. “With determination, unity and strength, we will restore security to the citizens of Israel.”
He stood alongside Defense Minister Benny Gantz, a political rival, in a show of unity. “There are lots of targets lined up. This is only the beginning,” Gantz said. The military said it was activating some 5,000 reservists and sending troop reinforcements to the Gaza border.
The current violence has coincided with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a time of heightened religious sentiments.
Critics say heavy-handed Israeli police measures in and around Jerusalem’s Old City helped stoke nightly unrest. Another flashpoint has been the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where dozens of Palestinians are under threat of eviction by Jewish settlers.
Confrontations erupted last weekend at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is the third-holiest site in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism. Over four days, Israeli police fired tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinians in the compound who hurled stones and chairs at the forces. At times, police fired stun grenades into the carpeted mosque.
On Monday evening, Hamas began firing rockets from Gaza. From there on, the escalation was rapid.
In a televised address, Hamas’ exiled leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said Israel bore responsibility. “It’s the Israeli occupation that set Jerusalem on fire, and the flames reached Gaza,” he said.
Read:Gaza militants, children among 24 dead as Israel hits Hamas
Palestinian health officials gave no breakdown on the death toll in Gaza, but Islamic Jihad confirmed that three senior commanders were killed in a strike on their hideout in a Gaza City apartment building. The Health Ministry said 10 children and a woman were also killed.
Netanyahu said Israel had attacked hundreds of targets. The fiercest attack was a set of airstrikes that brought down an entire 12-story building. The building housed important Hamas offices, as well as a gym and some start-up businesses. Israel fired a series of warning shots before demolishing the building, allowing people to flee and there were no casualties.
Israeli aircraft heavily damaged another Gaza City building early Wednesday. The nine-story structure housed residential apartments, medical companies and a dental clinic. A drone fired five warning rockets before the bombing. Israel said the building housed Hamas intelligence offices and the group’s command responsible for planning attacks on Israeli targets in the occupied West Bank.
Fighter jets struck the building again after journalists and rescuers had gathered around. There was no immediate word on casualties. The high-rise stood 200 meters (650 feet) away from the Associated Press bureau in Gaza City, and smoke and debris reached the office.
Soon after the bombing, Hamas announced that it would resume its attacks and aimed 100 rockets at the Israeli desert town of Beer-Sheva. Hamas said the renewed barrage was in response to the strike on the building. The latest rocket attack early Wednesday killed a man and his seven-year-old daughter in the central city of Lod, according to Israel’s Kan public radio.
The Israeli military said hundreds of rockets were launched toward Israel. Two women, including an Indian caregiver, were killed in separate rocket strikes in the southern city of Ashkelon.
Then, late at night, Hamas said it unleashed a barrage of 130 rockets toward Tel Aviv in response to the destruction of the high-rise. As the rockets rose into the skies, mosques across Gaza blared with chants of “God is great,” “victory to Islam” and “resistance.”
One rocket killed a woman in the city of Rishon LeZion, and another struck a bus in the nearby city of Holon, wounding three people, including a young girl.
The violence was beginning to spill over to Israel’s own Arab population.
In Lod, thousands of mourners joined a funeral for an Arab man killed by a suspected Jewish gunman the previous night. The crowd clashed with police, and set a synagogue and some 30 vehicles, including a police car, on fire, Israeli media reported. Paramedics said a 56-year-old man was seriously hurt after his car was pelted with stones.
The city’s mayor, Yair Revivo, described the situation in the mixed Jewish-Arab city as “civil war,” and the government ordered a deployment of paramilitary border guards from the West Bank to Lod.
In neighboring Ramle, ultra-nationalist Jewish demonstrators were filmed attacking cars belonging to Arabs. In the norther port town of Acre, protesters torched a Jewish-owned restaurant and hotel. Police arrested dozens of others at Arab protests in other towns.
Diplomats sought to intervene, with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations working to deliver a cease-fire. All three serve as mediators between Israel and Hamas.
The U.N. Security Council planned to hold its second closed emergency meeting in three days Wednesday on the escalating violence, an indication of growing international concern. Council diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private, said the U.N.’s most powerful body did not issue a statement because of U.S. concerns that it could escalate tensions.
Read:Gaza militants, Israel trade new rocket fire and airstrikes
The escalation comes at a time of political limbo in Israel.
Netanyahu has been caretaker prime minister since an inconclusive parliamentary election in March. After failing to form a coalition government by a deadline last week, his political rivals have now been given the opportunity.
The support of an Arab-backed party with Islamist roots is key for the anti-Netanyahu bloc. But the current tensions might deter the party’s leader, Mansour Abbas, from joining a coalition with Jewish parties, at least for the time being.
The sides have three more weeks to reach a deal. If they fail, Israel would likely begin an unprecedented fifth election campaign in just over two years.
Netanyahu warns Hamas, says Gaza operation 'will take time'
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says an Israeli military operation has dealt a tough blow to Gaza militants, but is warning that the fighting will continue for some time.
In a nationally televised speech late on Tuesday, he said Hamas and Islamic Jihad “have paid, and will pay a heavy price.”
He said Israel will press ahead with an intensified operation, but said “it will take time” to complete the mission.
A confrontation between Israel and Hamas sparked by weeks of tensions in contested Jerusalem escalated Tuesday as Israel unleashed new airstrikes on Gaza while militants barraged Israel with hundreds of rockets. The exchange killed a number of militants and civilians in Gaza and at least three Israelis.
Also read: Gaza militants, children among 24 dead as Israel hits Hamas
The barrage of rockets from the Gaza Strip and airstrikes into the territory continued almost nonstop throughout the day, in what appeared to be some of the most intense fighting between Israel and Hamas since their 2014 war. The fire was so relentless that Israel’s Iron Dome rocket-defense system seemed to be overwhelmed. Columns of smoke rose from many places in Gaza.
By late Tuesday, the violence extended to Tel Aviv, which came under fire from a barrage of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip. A 50-year-old woman was killed. The outgoing volleys set off air raid sirens across the city, and the main international airport quickly closed, forcing flights to divert.
Hamas said it launched a total of 130 rockets, its most intense strike so far, in response to Israel’s destruction of a high-rise building in Gaza earlier in the evening. The sound of the outgoing rockets could be heard in Gaza. As the rockets rose into the skies, mosques across Gaza blared with chants of “God is great,” “victory to Islam” and “resistance.”
One rocket struck a bus in the central city of Holon, just south of Tel Aviv. Medics said three people, including a 5-year-old girl, were wounded and the bus went up in flames.
Since sundown Monday, 28 Palestinians — including 10 children and a woman— were killed in Gaza, most by airstrikes, health officials there said. The Israeli military said at least 16 of the dead were militants.
Two women were killed by rockets fired from Gaza that hit their homes in the southern city of Ashkelon — the first Israeli deaths in the current violence. At least 10 other Israelis have been wounded since Monday evening.
After those deaths, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said officials decided to “increase both the strength and rate of the strikes” against militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian officials said they were trying to broker a cease-fire, but the cycle of violence was gaining momentum. Even before the two Israeli deaths, the Israeli military said it was sending troop reinforcements to the Gaza border, and the defense minister ordered the mobilization of 5,000 reserve soldiers.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, told reporters that the objective was to send a “clear message” to Hamas.
Also read: Gaza militants, Israel trade new rocket fire and airstrikes
Diplomats sought to intervene. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded a halt to the “spiraling” violence, a U.N. spokesman said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to the Israeli foreign minister to condemn the Hamas attacks and “reiterate the important message of de-escalation,” the State Department said.
The barrage of rockets and airstrikes was preceded by hours of clashes Monday between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, including dramatic confrontations at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a sacred site to both Jews and Muslims. The current violence, like previous rounds, including the last intifada, or uprising, has been fueled by conflicting claims over Jerusalem, which is at the emotional core of the long conflict.
In a sign of widening unrest, hundreds of residents of Arab communities across Israel staged overnight demonstrations denouncing the recent actions of Israeli security forces against Palestinians. It was one of the largest protests by Palestinian citizens in Israel in recent years.
In the central Israeli town of Lod, police fired tear gas and stun grenades after mourners threw rocks at officers during the funeral of an Arab man allegedly shot to death by a Jewish resident the night before. Thousands took part in the funeral, and police said the crowd set fire to a patrol car, a bus and a motorcycle. Two police officers were injured.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars and numerous skirmishes since the militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007. Recent rounds of fighting have usually ended after a few days, often helped by mediation by Qatar, Egypt and others.
Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes, including two that targeted high-rise apartment buildings where militants were believed to be hiding.
One strike demolished a 12-story building in Gaza City that housed the offices of top Hamas officials. Israeli drones fired a series of warning shots at the roof to give people time to leave the building before it was destroyed. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
At midday, an airstrike hit a building in central Gaza City, sending terrified residents running into the street, including women and barefoot children. The Islamic Jihad militant group confirmed that the strike killed three of its commanders.
Another strike hit a high-rise as people were conducting dawn prayers, killing a woman, her 19-year-old disabled son and another man, residents said. Health officials confirmed the deaths.
The Gaza Health Ministry said 28 people, including 10 children and the woman, have been killed and 152 wounded. Ashraf al-Kidra, a spokesman for the ministry, said Israel’s “relentless assault” was overwhelming the health care system, which has been struggling with a COVID-19 outbreak.
The escalation comes at a time of political limbo in Israel.
Netanyahu has been caretaker prime minister since an inconclusive parliamentary election in March. He failed to form a coalition government with his hard-line and ultra-Orthodox allies, and the task was handed to his political rivals last week.
One of those rivals is Israel’s defense minister, who is overseeing the Gaza campaign. It was not clear whether the political atmosphere was spilling over into military decision-making, though the rival camps have unanimously expressed support for striking Hamas hard.
The support of an Arab-backed party with Islamist roots is key for the anti-Netanyahu bloc. But the current tensions might deter the party’s leader, Mansour Abbas, from joining a coalition for now. The sides have three more weeks to reach a deal.
The current violence in Jerusalem coincided with the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in mid-April.
Critics say heavy-handed police measures helped stoke nightly unrest, including a decision to temporarily seal off a popular gathering spot where Palestinian residents would meet after evening prayers. Another flashpoint was the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where dozens of Palestinians are under threat of eviction by Jewish settlers.
Over the weekend, confrontations erupted at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which is the third holiest site of Islam and the holiest site in Judaism.
Over several days, Israel police fired tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets at Palestinians in the compound who hurled stones and chairs. At times, police fired stun grenades into the carpeted mosque.
On Monday evening, Hamas began firing rockets from Gaza. From there on, the escalation was rapid.
Gaza militants fired more than 500 rockets at Israel, with about one-third falling short and landing in Gaza, Conricus said.
At midday, a barrage of some 10 rockets whizzed above the southern city of Ashdod, filling the skies with streaks of white smoke.
Also read: Hamas fires rockets at Jerusalem after clashes at mosque
A rocket that hit an apartment building in Ashkelon injured six people, according to Israeli paramedic service Magen David Adom. A building in Ashdod was also hit, lightly wounding four, Israeli police said.
The military hit 130 targets in Gaza, including two tunnels militants were digging under the border with Israel, Conricus said. He did not address Gaza Health Ministry reports about the dead children.
Seven of the deaths in Gaza were members of a single family, including three children, who died in an explosion in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. It was not clear if the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike or errant rocket.
Gaza militants, children among 24 dead as Israel hits Hamas
Israel unleashed new airstrikes on Gaza early Tuesday, hitting the high-rise home of a Hamas field commander and two border tunnels dug by militants, as Hamas and other armed groups fired dozens of rockets toward Israel. It was an escalation sparked by weeks of tensions in contested Jerusalem.
Since sundown Monday when the cross-border fighting erupted, 24 Palestinians - including nine children - were killed in Gaza, most by airstrikes, Gaza health officials said. The Israeli military said 15 of the dead were militants. During the same period, Gaza militants fired more than 200 rockets toward Israel, injuring six Israeli civilians.
This was preceded by hours of clashes Monday between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, mainly in Jerusalem but also across the West Bank. More than 700 Palestinians were hurt, including nearly 500 who were treated at hospitals.
Read:Gaza militants, Israel trade new rocket fire and airstrikes
The current violence, like previous rounds, was fueled by conflicting claims over Jerusalem, home to major holy sites of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. The rival national and religious narratives of Israelis and Palestinians are rooted in the city, making it the emotional core of their long conflict.
In the past, cross-border fighting between Israel and Hamas, the group that rules Gaza, would typically end after a few days, often helped by behind-the-scenes mediation by Qatar, Egypt and others. It was not clear if that trajectory would be repeated this time.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Monday that fighting could “continue for some time.” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters Tuesday that the military was in “the early stages” of strikes against Gaza targets it had planned well in advance.
The escalation comes at a time of political limbo in Israel.
Netanyahu has been acting as a caretaker prime minister since an inconclusive parliament election in March. He tried and failed to form a coalition government with his hardline and ultra-Orthodox allies, and the task was handed to his sworn political rivals last week. One of those rivals is Israel’s defense minister who is overseeing the Gaza campaign. It is not clear if and to what extent the toxic political atmosphere is spilling over into military decision-making, though the rival camps have unanimously expressed support for striking Hamas hard.
The tensions in Jerusalem coincided with the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in mid-April. Critics say heavy-handed police measures helped stoke nightly unrest, including a decision to temporarily seal off a popular night-time gathering spot where Palestinian residents would meet after evening prayers. Another flashpoint was the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah where dozens of Palestinians are under treat of eviction by Jewish settlers.
Over the weekend, confrontations erupted at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in east Jerusalem, which was captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. The compound, located in Jerusalem’s Old City, is the third holiest site of Islam and the holiest site of Judaism.
Read:153 Palestinians in hospital after Jerusalem holy site clash
For four successive days, Israel police fired tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets at Palestinians in the compound who hurled stones and chairs. Hundreds of Palestinians were hurt, requiring treatment at hospitals. Two dozen officers were also injured. At times, police fired stun grenades into the carpeted mosque.
On Monday evening, Hamas began firing rockets from Gaza, setting off air raid sirens as far as Jerusalem, after giving Israel a deadline to withdraw Israeli security forces from the compound. From there on, the escalation was rapid.
Conricus, the army spokesman, said Gaza militants fired more than 200 rockets at Israel, with about one-third falling short and landing in Gaza.
The army said that a rocket landed a direct hit on a seven-story apartment block in the coastal Israeli city of Ashkelon. Photos and videos from the scene showed a large blast hole on the side of the building. Israeli paramedic service Magen David Adom said it treated six people injured in the rocket strike. Two were hospitalized in moderate condition.
Conricus said the military hit 130 targets in Gaza, including the high-rise home of a Hamas field commander and two tunnels militants were digging under the border with Israel. In all, Israel killed 15 militants, Conricus said, including some tunnel diggers. He said Israel’s new system of concrete barriers and electronic sensors, intended to thwart tunnel digging, has been operational for the past six months and has proven itself.
He did not address Gaza Health Ministry reports that nine children were among 24 Palestinians killed overnight.
In Gaza, most of the deaths were attributed to airstrikes. However, seven of the deaths were members of a single family, including three children, who died in a mysterious explosion in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. It was not clear if the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike or errant rocket.
Read:Israeli police, Palestinians clash at Jerusalem holy site
More than 100 Gazans were wounded in the airstrikes, the Health Ministry said.
In one sign of escalation, an Israeli missile hit the upper floors of an apartment building in the Shati refugee camp on the edge of Gaza City early Tuesday, killing two men and a woman inside, according to health officials.
Israel had struck scores of Gaza homes in its 2014 war with Hamas, arguing it was aiming at militants, but also killing many civilians. The practice drew broad international condemnation at the time.
In Argentina, doctors adapt as COVID-19 strains hospitals
Verónica Verdino, an Argentine doctor, helped a therapist insert a tube into the trachea of a COVID-19 patient during another hectic day in a hospital emergency room.
Verdino, 31, has become adept at the delicate procedure during the current outbreak of coronavirus cases that has filled clinics in Buenos Aires and nearby towns with patients.
A little over a year ago, before the pandemic hit Argentina, Verdino did not imagine that she would be performing so many intubations, and helping others with the same procedure, at the Llavallol Dr. Norberto Raúl Piacentini Hospital in the town of Lomas de Zamora, outside Buenos Aires.
Read:Why are so many babies dying of Covid-19 in Brazil?
Now doctors who used to be on duty in general wards have become experts in this and other complex techniques typical of intensive care specialists as they help patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19. Some wards have been converted into intensive care units because the outbreak is straining the health system.
The situation at the hospital where Verdino works is similar in many public and private health facilities in Buenos Aires and nearby towns, with an average of more than 20,000 infections and 400 deaths per day in recent weeks and 100% occupation of ICUs in some centers.
Doctors say they are seeing many younger patients, partly because youths are being infected with coronavirus variants at social gatherings, while older people are protected by vaccines they have received.
“We’re cutting corners everywhere ... We have all the illnesses other than COVID, plus this (coronavirus) wave that exploded,” Verdino told The Associated Press during a recent 24-hour shift.
The husband of the woman who was intubated by Verdino stared dejectedly through the glass from the other side of a door. Nearby, in another room, two patients lay connected to respirators. A few meters away, a man who had just died was placed in a black plastic bag.
A few days later, on another grueling shift, Verdino climbed onto a small bench next to the bed of a man she had tried to intubate, leaned over his chest and performed CPR in a desperate attempt to save his life. Several of her colleagues helped her.
Read:India reports 366,161 new COVID-19 cases
The patient died. Verdina and her colleague, Stephanie Muñoz, took time to prepare the man’s body and the room before his son viewed him through the window of the door.
Nurses describe a situation known as “warm bed”, in which a patient who has died is promptly replaced in a room by another seriously ill person.
General ward medics have also learned to master the use of complex drugs that keep patients sedated and to study electrocardiograms and CT scans, as well as to perform laryngoscopes. They do it as oxygen supplies become scarce in hospitals, which have formed networks to assist each other when they can.
“I was used to working a lot but this overwhelms you in everything,” said nurse Silvia Cardoso, who works with Verdino.
Cardoso said she was shocked by the number of young people who are hospitalized with serious symptoms, something that did not happen previously.
“It could be prevented,” she lamented, suggesting that some young people had not observed health protocols.
Read:Pfizer COVID-19 shot expanded to US children as young as 12
Police in some Argentine towns often break up clandestine parties. In restaurants that serve outdoors, tables full of diners are placed close to each other. Parks are full of people having picnics and playing sports. There are frequent social protests, including for higher wages, in Buenos Aires.
With people exhausted by quarantines and vaccination programs going slowly, politicians argue over issues such as whether to allow students back to class. During a peak of coronavirus cases, students went to school in Buenos Aires but were not allowed to do so in the city suburbs, creating a confusing situation.
Many doctors try to stay out of the political disputes, instead urging people to stick to measures aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19. Argentina has so far reported more than 67,300 confirmed deaths and more than 3.1 million people sickened by the disease.
If people don’t collaborate, “the point will come where the health system collapses,” Verdino said.
100 days in power, Myanmar junta holds pretense of control
After Myanmar’s military seized power by ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, they couldn’t even make the trains run on time: State railway workers were among the earliest organized opponents of the February takeover, and they went on strike.
Health workers who founded the civil disobedience movement against military rule stopped staffing government medical facilities. Many civil servants were no-shows at work, along with employees of government and private banks. Universities became hotbeds of resistance, and in recent weeks, education at the primary and secondary levels has begun to collapse as teachers, students and parents boycott state schools.
Read:More than 200 NGOs call for UN arms embargo on Myanmar
One hundred days after their takeover, Myanmar’s ruling generals maintain just the pretense of control. The illusion is sustained mainly by its partially successful efforts to shut down independent media and to keep the streets clear of large demonstrations by employing lethal force. More than 750 protesters and bystanders have been killed by security forces, according to detailed independent tallies.
“The junta might like people to think that things are going back to normal because they are not killing as many people as they were before and there weren’t as many people on the streets as before, but... the feeling we are getting from talking to people on the ground is that definitely the resistance has not yet subsided,” said Thin Lei Win, a journalist now based in Rome who helped found the Myanmar Now online news service in 2015.
She says the main change is that dissent is no longer as visible as in the early days of the protests — before security forces began using live ammunition — when marches and rallies in major cities and towns could easily draw tens of thousands of people.
At the same time, said David Mathieson, an independent analyst who has been working on Myanmar issues for over 20 years, “Because of the very violent pacification of those protests, a lot of people are willing to become more violent.”
“We are already starting to see signs of that. And with the right training, the right leadership and the right resources, what Myanmar could experience is an incredibly nasty destructive, internal armed conflict in multiple locations in urban areas.”
Meanwhile, the junta also faces a growing military challenge in the always restive border regions where ethnic minority groups exercise political power and maintain guerrilla armies. Two of the more battle-hardened groups, the Kachin in the north and the Karen in the east, have declared their support for the protest movement and stepped up their fighting, despite the government military, known as the Tatmadaw, hitting back with greater firepower, including airstrikes.
Even a month ago, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was describing the situation as grim, saying Myanmar’s “economy, education and health infrastructure have been brought to the brink of collapse, leaving millions of Myanmar people without livelihood, basic services and, increasingly, food security.”
It was not surprising that The Economist magazine, in an April cover story, labeled Myanmar “Asia’s next failed state” and opined it was heading in the direction of Afghanistan.
Read:Pro-democracy forces in Myanmar create "People's Defence Force"
The U.N.’s Bachelet made a different comparison.
“There are clear echoes of Syria in 2011,” she said. “There too, we saw peaceful protests met with unnecessary and clearly disproportionate force. The State’s brutal, persistent repression of its own people led to some individuals taking up arms, followed by a downward and rapidly expanding spiral of violence all across the country.”
Junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has shunned all efforts at mediation, from the United Nations as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member.
Myanmar’s resistance movement, meanwhile, has organized widely and swiftly underground.
Within days of the junta takeover, elected parliamentarians who were denied their seats convened their own self-styled Parliament. Its members have formed a shadow National Unity Government with guidelines for an interim constitution, and last week, a People’s Defense Force as a precursor to a Federal Union Army. Many cities, towns and even neighborhoods had already formed local defense groups which in theory will now become part of the People’s Defense Force.
Aside from being morale boosters, these actions serve a strategic purpose by endorsing a federal style of government, which has been sought for decades by the country’s ethnic minorities to give them autonomous powers in the border areas where they predominate.
Promoting federalism, in which the center shares power with the regions, aligns the interests of the anti-military pro-democracy movement with the goals of the ethnic minorities. In theory, this could add a real military component to a movement whose armaments are generally no deadlier than Molotov cocktails and air rifles — though homemade bombs have been added to its arsenals in recent weeks.
In practice, at least for the time being, the guerrilla armies of the Kachin in the north and the Karen in the east will fight as they always have, to protect their own territory. They can give military training to the thousands of activists that are claimed to have fled the cities to their zones, but are still overmatched by the government’s forces. But on their home ground they hold an advantage against what their populations consider an occupying army. That may be enough.
Read:Myanmar’s military disappearing young men to crush uprising
“The only thing that the military is really threatened by is when all of these disparate voices and communities around the country actually start working against it, not as a unified monolith, but all working against the military’s interests,” said the analyst, Mathieson. ”And I think that’s the best that we can hope for moving forward, that the people recognize that all efforts have to go against the military. And if that means fighting up in the hills and doing peaceful protests and other forms of striking back against the military in the towns and the cities, then so be it.”
It’s hard to gauge if the army has a breaking point.
Mathieson said he’s seen no signs the junta was willing to negotiate or concede anything. The Tatmadaw is “remarkably resilient. And they recognize that this is an almost existential threat to their survival.”
Across faiths, US volunteers mobilize for India crisis
Volunteers at Hindu temples, Muslim groups and Sikh relief organizations across the United States are mobilizing to support India as the world’s second most populous country struggles to handle a devastating surge of the coronavirus.
From coast to coast, faith groups tied to the Indian diaspora have collected hundreds of oxygen concentrators and electrical transformers to ship to overwhelmed hospitals, raised millions for everything from food to firewood for funeral pyres and gathered in prayer for spiritual support for the Asian nation.
Read:11 die in India hospital due to disruption in oxygen supply
“This is a human tragedy, said Manzoor Ghori, executive director of the California-based Indian Muslim Relief and Charities, which has donated more than $1 million for purposes including supporting teachers and providing families with thousands of medical kits and more than 300,000 meals.
Ghori said he has had five loved ones, including two nephews, die in India from COVID-19 — “so, it is a personal tragedy” as well.
He’s one of many in the U.S. diaspora to have lost relatives to the virus in India, where total confirmed infections and deaths have surpassed 22.6 million and 246,000, respectively, though the true numbers are believed to be much higher.
Kashyap Patel, an Atlanta-based physician, said the pandemic has been “catastrophic” for him, with about a dozen members of his extended family in India contracting the virus, from teenagers to octogenarians, and his 73-year-old uncle dying from it.
He volunteers for the North America branch of the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Hindu organization, which has provided 250 oxygen concentrators and several hundred thousand dollars in COVID-19 relief to help with India’s overwhelmed health system.
“It is challenging to find hospital beds,” Patel said. “It is challenging to find oxygen, to find contemporary medicine.”
India’s Supreme Court recently said it would set up a national task force consisting of top experts and doctors to conduct an “oxygen audit” to determine whether supplies from the government were reaching states in the country of nearly 1.4 billion people amid widespread complaints of shortages.
The U.S. branch of Khalsa Aid, a U.K.-based Sikh humanitarian organization, is sending another 500 concentrators and 500 electrical transformers this week to New Delhi, where the group’s team is already helping COVID-19 patients, hospitals and NGOS with essential supplies as well as wood for cremations.
At a warehouse on New York’s Long Island, workers busily packed, sorted and labeled dozens of boxes containing transformers on a recent day ahead of their shipment.
Read:In India’s northeast there’s fear of a virus surge to come
“In these last two weeks, many of us haven’t slept. We’ve been running our day jobs at the same time,” one of the group’s directors, Manpreet Kaur said.
“It’s been an intense period of time, but for us, it’s about giving back to the community,” Kaur continued. “And the people in India definitely need that support.”
Khalsa Aid’s India relief effort has gotten grassroots support from individuals all over the country, such as Tahil Sharma, a Los Angeles-based interfaith activist born to a Hindu father and a Sikh mother. He raised nearly $3,000 on Facebook for the initiative.
“It’s a small amount for a really big crisis,” Sharma said. “But it helps mitigate the costs that Khalsa Aid needs to take upon itself sometimes in being able to get oxygen concentrators, to be able to secure beds at gurdwaras (Sikh houses of worship) on the ground in New Delhi, to help them get the resources that they need so people don’t get hit by more waves of deaths.”
Seeing individual pledges like that on social media platforms motivated members of Shri Shirdi Saibaba, a Hindu Temple in South Brunswick Township, New Jersey, to organize as a religious organization for their own effort, temple founder and chairman Rajesh Anand said. So far the temple has raised about $3,000 to buy concentrators for two hospitals in New Delhi.
“We are one among many to help the cause,” Anand said.
In the New York City borough of Queens, the Hindu Temple Society of North America has also been fundraising online and has so far donated more than $50,000 to the India Development and Relief Fund in Washington, D.C., for concentrators and other medical needs.
The temple also organized special group prayers for those who have died of COVID-19 and a virtual vigil featuring music, prayer and speeches by interfaith leaders and elected officials.
“When we learned more about the difficulties the country was facing,” said Ravi Vaidyanaat, the temple’s director of religious affairs, “we immediately thought we had to do something.”
Support for India has come, too, from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which sent ventilators to hospitals in Mumbai and Ahmedabad and personal protective equipment to rural communities. It is also recruiting U.S. and Israeli intensive-care doctors and nurses for a telemedicine training program.
Read:India reports 366,161 new COVID-19 cases
“In the efforts that we’re making in India ... what we keep in mind is that with each action that we engage in, we can save one life,” said Michael Geller, the group’s director of communications and media relations. “And that one life represents an entire world of people who can be impacted.”
Nepal, India’s much-smaller neighbor, is seeing its own pandemic spike, with doctors there warning recently of a major crisis as hospitals run out of beds and oxygen. That has prompted similar aid efforts by Nepalese in the United States.
“It’s a landlocked country, and there’s a lack of resources there. ... The situation in Nepal is very bad,” said Urgen Sherpa, a former president and current adviser of New York City’s United Sherpa Association, which has raised about $5,000 for Nepal.
1.4B but no more? China’s population growth closer to zero
China’s weak population growth is falling closer to zero as fewer couples have children, government data showed Tuesday, adding to strains on an aging society with a shrinking workforce.
The population rose by 72 million people over the past 10 years to 1.411 billion in 2020, the National Bureau of Statistics announced after a once-a-decade census. It said annual growth averaged 0.53%, down by 0.04% from the previous decade.
Read: China says most rocket debris burned up during reentry
Chinese leaders have enforced birth limits since 1980 to restrain population growth but worry the number of working-age people is falling too fast, disrupting efforts to create a prosperous economy. They have eased birth limits, but couples are put off by high costs, cramped housing and job discrimination against mothers.
“Labor resources are still abundant,” the statistics agency director, Ning Jizhe, said at a news conference.
The percentage of children in the population edged up compared with 2010, while the share 60 and older rose faster. The pool of potential workers aged 15 to 59 shrank to 894 million, down about 5% from a 2011 peak of 925 million.
Changes in birth limits and other policies “promoted a rebound in the birth population,” Ning said. However, he said there were 12 million babies born last year, which would be down 18% from 2019’s report of 14.6 million.
China, along with Thailand and some other developing Asian countries that are aging fast, faces what economists call the challenge of whether it can grow rich before it grows old. Some forecasters warn China faces a “demographic time bomb.”
Reflecting the issue’s sensitivity, the statistics agency took the unusual step last month of announcing the population grew in 2020 but gave no total. That looked like an effort to calm companies and investors after The Financial Times reported the census might have found a surprise decline.
“We are more concerned about the fast decline in the working-age population,” said Lu Jiehua, a professor of population studies at Peking University.
The population of potential workers aged 15 to 59 will fall from three-quarters of the total in 2011 to just above half by 2050, according to Lu.
“If the population gets too old, it will be impossible to solve the problem through immigration,” said Lu. “It needs to be dealt with at an early stage.”
Couples who want a child face daunting challenges.
Many share crowded apartments with their parents. Child care is expensive and maternity leave short. Most single mothers are excluded from medical insurance and social welfare payments.
Some women worry giving birth could hurt their careers.
“When you have a kid, you take pregnancy leave, but will you still have this position after you take the leave?” said He Yiwei, who is returning from the United States after obtaining a master’s degree. “Relative to men, when it comes to work, women have to sacrifice more.”
Read:Ramadan in China: Faithful dwindle under limits on religion
Japan, Germany and some other rich countries face the same challenge of supporting aging populations with fewer workers. But they can draw on investments in factories, technology and foreign assets. By contrast, China still is a middle-income country with labor-intensive farming and manufacturing.
The decline in the working-age population “will place a cap on China’s potential economic growth,” said Yue Su of the Economist Intelligence Unit in a report. That is a “powerful incentive to introduce productivity-enhancing reforms.”
The International Monetary Fund is forecasting Chinese economic growth of 8.4% this year following a rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. The ruling Communist Party wants to double output per person from 2020 levels by 2035, which would require annual growth of about 4.7%.
The numbers reported Thursday reflect a gain of 11.8 million people, or 0.8%, over the official estimate for 2019, when the government says the population edged above 1.4 billion for the first time.
The working-age population fell to 63.3% of the total from 70.1% a decade ago. The group up to age 14 expanded by 1.3 percentage points to 17.9%. Those 60 and older — a group of 264 million people who on their own would be the world’s fourth-biggest country — rose 5.4 percentage points to 18.7% of the population.
The party took its biggest step in 2015 when rules that limited many couples to having only one child were eased to allow two.
However, China’s birth rate, paralleling trends in South Korea, Thailand and other Asian economies, already was falling before the one-child rule. The average number of children per mother tumbled from above six in the 1960s to below three by 1980, according to the World Bank.
Demographers say official birth limits concealed what would have been a further fall in the number of children per family.
The one-child limit, enforced with threats of fines or loss of jobs, led to abuses including forced abortions. A preference for sons led parents to kill baby girls, prompting warnings millions of men might be unable to find a wife, fueling social tension.
Thursday’s data showed China has 105.7 million men and boys for every 100 women and girls, or about 33 million more males.
The ruling party says the policy averted shortages of food and water by preventing as many as 400 million potential births. But demographers say if China followed Asian trends, the number of additional babies without controls might have been as low as a few million.
After limits were eased in 2015, many couples with one child had a second but total births fell because fewer had any at all.
Some researchers say China’s population already is shrinking.
Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the population started to fall in 2018. His book “Big Country With An Empty Nest” argued against the one-child limits.
“China’s economic, social, educational, tech, defense and foreign policies are built on the foundation of wrong numbers,” said Yi.
Chinese regulators talk about raising the official retirement age of 55 to increase the pool of workers.
Read: China: US should push North Korea diplomacy, not pressure
Female professionals welcome a chance to stay in satisfying careers. But others resent being forced to work more years. And keeping workers on the job, unable to help look after children, might discourage their daughters from having more.
The latest data put China closer to be overtaken by India as the most populous country, which is expected to happen by 2025.
India’s population last year was estimated by the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs at 1.38 billion, or 1.5% behind China. The agency says India should grow by 0.9% annually through 2025.
Gaza militants, Israel trade new rocket fire and airstrikes
Palestinian militants launched dozens of rockets from Gaza and Israel unleashed new air strikes against them early Tuesday, in an escalation triggered by soaring tensions in Jerusalem and days of clashes at an iconic mosque in the holy city.
Twenty-two people, including nine children, were killed in Gaza overnight, most of them in Israeli strikes. More than 700 Palestinians were hurt in clashes with Israeli security forces in Jerusalem and across the West Bank in 24 hours, including nearly 500 who were treated at hospitals. The Israeli military said six Israeli civilians were hurt by rocket fire Tuesday morning.
Read:153 Palestinians in hospital after Jerusalem holy site clash
This round of violence, like previous ones, was fueled by conflicting claims over Jerusalem, home to major holy sites of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. The rival national and religious narratives of Israelis and Palestinians are rooted in the city, making it the emotional core of their long conflict.
In recent weeks, tension as been soaring in Jerusalem, marked by clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police in the walled Old City, located in east Jerusalem which Israel captured and annexed in the 1967 war.
One of the flashpoints in the Old City has been the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site of Islam and the holiest site of Judaism. Another driver of Palestinian anger has been the threatened eviction of Palestinian families from homes in an east Jerusalem neighborhood by Israeli settlers.
Monday was a long day of anger and deadly violence, laying bare Jerusalem’s deep divisions, even as Israel tried to celebrate its capture of the city’s eastern sector and its sensitive holy sites more than half a century ago. With dozens of rockets flying into Israel throughout the night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with top security officials and warned that the fighting could drag on, despite calls for calm from the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.
Hamas, the militant group ruling the Gaza Strip, fired dozens of rockets Monday evening, setting off air raid sirens as far as Jerusalem. The barrage came after Hamas had given Israel a deadline to withdraw forces from the Al-Aqsa compound.
By Tuesday morning, Hamas and other Gaza miliants had fired more than 200 rockets. That included a barrage of six rockets that targeted Jerusalem, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) away. It set off air raid sirens throughout Jerusalem, and explosions could be heard in what was believed to be the first time the city had been targeted since a 2014 war.
There appeared to be some first signs of de-escalation in Jerusalem early Tuesday. Palestinian worshippers performed the dawn prayer at the mosque without confrontations as Israel apparently limited the presence of its police officers around the compound. Amateur videos showed dozens of faithful marching to the mosque and chanting “we sacrifice our blood, soul for Al-Aqsa.”
Read:Israeli police, Palestinians clash at Jerusalem holy site
In Gaza, an Israeli drone strike killed a man in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis early Tuesday, according to local media reports. In another strike, a woman was killed when a missile struck the upper floors of an apartment building in the Shati refugee camp on the edge of Gaza City, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
Hamas’ armed wing said it intensified the rocket barrages following the airstrike on the house.
The Israeli military said it had carried out dozens of airstrikes across Gaza overnight, targeting what it said were Hamas military installations and operatives. It said a Hamas tunnel, rocket launchers and at least eight militants had been hit.
Dozens of rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. But one landed near a home on the outskirts of Jerusalem, causing light damage to the structure and sparking a brush fire nearby. In southern Israel, an Israeli man was lightly wounded after a missile struck a vehicle.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “terrorist organizations in Gaza have crossed a red line and attacked us with missiles in the outskirts of Jerusalem.”
He said fighting could continue for some time and that “”whoever attacks us will pay a heavy price,” he said, warning that the fighting could “continue for some time.”
Gaza health officials gave no further breakdowns on the casualties. At least 15 of the 22 deaths in Gaza were attributed to the airstrikes. Seven of the deaths were members of a single family, including three children, who died in a mysterious explosion in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. It was not clear if the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike or errant rocket. More than 100 Gazans were wounded in the airstrikes, the Health Ministry said.
Read:More Jerusalem clashes on eve of contentious Israeli parade
In a statement issued early Tuesday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the rocket attacks would continue until Israel stops “all scenes of terrorism and aggression in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa mosque.”
Tensions at the site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, have triggered repeated bouts of violence in the past.
In Monday’s unrest, Israeli police fired tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets in clashes with stone-throwing Palestinians at the compound.
More than a dozen tear gas canisters and stun grenades landed in the mosque as police and protesters faced off inside the walled compound that surrounds it, said an Associated Press photographer at the scene. Smoke rose in front of the mosque and the golden-domed shrine on the site, and rocks littered the nearby plaza. Inside one area of the compound, shoes and debris lay scattered over ornate carpets.
Over 600 Palestinians were hurt in Jerusalem alone, including more than 400 who required care at hospitals and clinics, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Palestinians and police reported renewed clashes late Monday. Israeli police also reported unrest in northern Israel, where Arab protesters burned tires and threw stones and fireworks at security forces. Police said 46 people were arrested.
Monday’s confrontations came after weeks of almost nightly clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in the Old City of Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The month tends to be a time of heightened religious sensitivities.
Most recently, the tensions have been fueled by the planned eviction of dozens of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem, where Israeli settlers have waged a lengthy legal battle to take over properties.
Israel’s Supreme Court postponed a key ruling Monday in the case, citing the “circumstances.”
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned “in the strongest terms” the rocket fire on Israel and called on all sides to calm the situation.
“More broadly, we’re deeply concerned about the situation in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including violent confrontations in Jerusalem,” he said. He said the U.S. would remain “fully engaged” and praised steps by Israel to cool things down, including the court delay in the eviction case.
In an apparent attempt to avoid further confrontation, Israeli authorities changed the planned route of a march by thousands of flag-waving nationalist Jews through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City to mark Jerusalem Day.
Read:Beefed-up Israel police clash with Palestinians in Jerusalem
The annual festival is meant to celebrate Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. But it is widely seen as a provocation because the route goes through the heart of Palestinian areas.
Israel also captured the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. It later annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city its capital. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital.
Meanwhile, the United Nations, Egypt and Qatar, which frequently mediate between Israel and Hamas, were all trying to halt the fighting, a diplomatic official confirmed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with the media.
The tensions in Jerusalem have threatened to reverberate throughout the region and come at a crucial point in Israel’s political crisis. Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition last week, and his opponents are now working to build an alternate government.