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Gaza burns amid race for truce
Before dawn, dozens of Israeli strikes bombarded the Palestinian coastal strip controlled by Islamist group Hamas. Flames lit up the sky as intense explosions shook Gaza City, damaging hundreds of buildings.
Agencies
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GAZA CITY/Tel AvivIsraeli jets kept pounding Gaza on Monday, as the enclave’s residents hid indoors and the violence that has killed over 200 people entered a second week.
Before dawn, dozens of Israeli strikes bombarded the Palestinian coastal strip controlled by Islamist group Hamas. Flames lit up the sky as intense explosions shook Gaza City, damaging hundreds of buildings.
Militant groups in Gaza also gave no sign that an end to fighting was imminent. Soon after a militant commander’s death, Islamic Jihad fired rockets at the Israeli coastal city of Ashdod, and medics said seven people had been injured.
On Monday night, US President Joe Biden said he would call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and discuss how to end the conflict.
Some 3,200 rockets have been fired by Palestinian militants towards Israel since the conflict escalated on May 10.
In Gaza, dust clouds from explosions rose near its Mediterranean port, with Israel’s army confirming it had targeted “a Hamas submergible naval weapon”. West Gaza resident Mahdi Abed Rabbo, 39, expressed “horror and fear” at the intensity of the onslaught.
Israel’s army said on Monday it hit the homes of nine “high-ranking” Hamas commanders. It gave no details of any casualties. An Islamic Jihad commander was killed on Monday. Fighter jets also hit what the Israeli army calls the “metro”, its term for Hamas’s underground tunnels.
In total, 200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including at least 59 children, since Israel launched its air campaign against Hamas after the group fired rockets. Israel says 10 people, including one child, have been killed by rocket fire.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Israel has the right to defend itself, but that he had been alarmed that journalists and medical workers had been put at risk. While he signalled that the US was still not joining calls for a ceasefire, he called on all sides to protect civilians.
