Israel ‘neutralises’ six Hamas leaders as death toll in Gaza fighting passes 70 including 16 children, Palestinians unleash 130 more missiles and Netanyahu threatens ‘blows they have not dreamed of’
- Palestinian militants have stockpiled enough missiles to continue bombing Israel for the next two months
- Boris Johnson led international leaders in calling for the two sides to step back from the brink on Wednesday
- Please for calm appeared in vain as Israeli and Palestinian leaders traded threats and further rocket strikes
- The most intense hostilities in seven years have killed at least 65 people in Gaza, including 16 children, and seven in Israel, including a soldier and one Indian national, since Monday
Palestinian militants have stockpiled enough missiles to continue bombing Israel for the next two months, security experts have warned, as escalating fighting led the UN to warn of ‘all-out war’.
Boris Johnson led international leaders in calling for the two sides to step back from the brink yesterday.
However, the pleas for calm appeared in vain as Israeli and Palestinian leaders traded blood-curdling threats and further rocket strikes.
And after a senior Hamas commander was killed yesterday, the Islamist militant group responded with a barrage of rockets into southern Israel which rescue workers said killed a six-year-old boy.
Israel’s defence minister Benny Gantz vowed more attacks on Gaza to bring ‘total, long-term quiet’ before they would consider truce talks after six days of violence. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his military would only use ‘increasing force’ in the conflict.
‘We eliminated senior Hamas commanders and this is just the beginning,’ he said. ‘We will inflict blows on them that they couldn’t even dream of.’ The leader of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh hit back, vowing that ‘if Israel wants to escalate, we are ready for it’.
Six high-ranking commanders were ‘neutralised’ on Wednesday, including Brigadier General Bassem Issa and Jamal Zabda, head of the group’s rocket unit, according to the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).
Yesterday Mr Johnson tweeted a plea for both sides to ‘step back from the brink’ and ‘show restraint’. He added: ‘The UK is deeply concerned by the growing violence and civilian casualties and we want to see an urgent de-escalation of tensions.’
His calls were backed up by similar messages from the EU, the US, Russia and Turkey.
High-ranking commanders killed on Wednesday included Brigadier General Bassem Issa (pictured) and Jamal Zabda, head of the group’s rocket unit, according to the Israeli Defence Force (IDF)
The UN’s Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland warned the latest violence was ‘escalating towards a full-scale war’. And UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he was ‘gravely concerned’ by the ongoing troubles.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired more than 1,000 missiles in the first 48 hours of the conflict which began on Monday, an average of one every three minutes, and has enough to keep the bombardment going for two months.
Israeli military spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus said: ‘According to our estimates we’re talking about between 20,000 and 30,000 rockets in Gaza today, rockets and mortars.
‘We’ve seen a constant expansion in terms of range and also in terms of the size of the warheads. They have an advanced arsenal of rockets, I think it’s on a par with the fire capabilities of a few small European countries.’
While Israel’s Iron Dome aerial defence system has intercepted nine out of ten Palestinian rockets, the remainder have killed at least six civilians and injured more than 90. Families in Tel Aviv spent most of yesterday taking cover in underground shelters.
Israel’s retaliation has included hundreds of air strikes on Gaza, led by F-35 stealth bombers and Apache attack helicopters, which are understood to have killed 32 and wounded 300. Israel says most of the dead were terrorists and insists 13 children killed were victims of stray Palestinian rockets.
A fire rages at sunrise in Khan Yunish following an Israeli airstrike on targets in the southern Gaza strip, early on May 12, 2021. – Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip have hit the homes of high-ranking members of the Hamas militant group, the military said Wednesday, with the territory’s police headquarters also targeted
Israeli artillery in action as the escalation continues between Israeli army and Hamas at the Gaza Border, Israel, 12 May 2021. At least 70 people have been killed in the conflict, including around 16 children
Pictured: Palestinians leave their neighbourhood to head to a safer location as Israeli warplanes continue air strikes on Gaza Strip, in Gaza City, Gaza on May 12
The UN security council met yesterday to discuss the crisis. The heaviest offensive between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in the Hamas-ruled enclave has increased international concern that the situation could spiral out of control.
‘Israel has gone crazy,’ said a man on a Gaza street, where people ran out of their homes as explosions rocked buildings.
Unrest has been growing in Israel and Gaza in recent weeks following violent confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem and a long-running dispute over the eviction of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem in favour of Jewish settlers.
Netanyahu vows to ‘inflict blows that Hamas has not dreamed of’ before Israeli air strike levels 14-storey building and Hamas retaliates with 130 rockets
Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday threatened to ‘inflict blows that Hamas has not dreamed of’ before Israeli rockets levelled a 14-storey tower bloc, prompting Hamas to retaliate with 130 rockets of its own, as the deadly fighting in the middle east continued on Wednesday.
Israeli fighter jets dropped two bombs on the 14-storey Al-Sharouk tower, which housed the bureau of the Al-Aqsa television channel, and is the third tall structure in Gaza City levelled since the bombing campaign began Monday.
The Israeli Prime Minister issued the threat as he visited a hospital in the city of Holon today, paying tribute to those wounded in fighting between the two sides that is now at its worst point since the 2014 Gaza War.
Referencing the deaths of Hamas commanders earlier in the day – including Brigadier General Bassem Issa and Jamal Zabda, head of the group’s rocket unit – Netanyahu vowed: ‘This is only the beginning.’
Another multi-storey building was destroyed in Gaza on Wednesday evening by an Israeli air strike, prompting Hamas to retaliate with 130 rockets of its own, as the deadly fighting in the middle east continued on Wednesday. Pictured: Smoke rises from Al-Sharouk tower hit by an Israeli air strikes, in Gaza City on May 12, 2021
Heavy smoke and fire rise from Al-Sharouk tower as it collapses after being hit by an Israeli air strike, in Gaza City on May 12, 2021. An Israeli air strike destroyed a multi-storey building in Gaza City today
Pictured: Rescuers and people gather in front of the debris of Al-Sharouk tower that collapsed after being hit by an Israeli air strike, in Gaza City, on May 12, 2021
His comments came despite international calls for urgent deescalation and as Israel braces for more missile strikes overnight to avenge the deaths of its commanders.
In just two days of fighting, Hamas has fired more than 1,000 rockets at Israel, while the Jewish state has carried out counter-strikes against what it called military targets.
But the civilian death toll is quickly mounting, with at least with at least 65 Palestinians including 14 children and three women killed as of Wednesday evening, alongside seven Israelis including one child and one soldier.
Israeli police announced Wednesday that they are imposing a nighttime curfew on the central city of Lod, that was the scene of unrest in recent days
Police said in a statement that officers would enforce the ban on people entering Lod, residents leaving their homes, and people in public spaces starting at 8 p.m.
Lod has seen two nights of violent protests, including the torching of dozens of vehicles, a synagogue, and violent clashes between Arab protesters and police. Israeli authorities declared a state of emergency in the city and deployed Border Police forces.
Hamas has confirmed that Bassem Issa, commander of its Gaza City Brigade, was among those ‘martyred’ today.
Rockets are launched towards Israel from Rafah, in the southern the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Palestinian Hamas movement, on May 12, 2021
An Israeli artillery unit fires toward targets in Gaza Strip, at the Israeli Gaza border, Wednesday, May 12, 2021, as the IDF ramps up its operation against Hamas
Smoke and fire rise above buildings in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, during an Israeli air strike, on May 12, 2021
Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, named another three slain Hamas officers: Jamaa Tahla, responsible for the improved accuracy of the group’s rockets; Jamal Zabeda, chief of ‘special projects’ in the munitions department; and Hazzem Hatib, head engineer in the munitions wing.
The militants have launched more than 1,050 rockets at Israel since Monday, killing six civilians, including an Arab-Israeli girl in the city of Lod in the early hours of this morning.
‘The army will continue to attack to bring a total, long-term quiet. Only when we reach that goal will we be able to speak about a truce,’ Defence Minister Benny Gantz said today from the southern town of Ashkelon where two Israeli women were killed by Hamas rockets on Tuesday.
Along the Gaza border, an Israeli soldier was also killed by an anti-tank missile, the military said.
Israeli ultranationalists attack Arab driver in Tel Aviv suburb as clashes on the streets continue on Wednesday
A large crowd of ultranationalist Israelis have attacked a car in a Tel Aviv suburb they suspected was driven by an Arab, dragging the driver out of the car and beating him.
A video from the scene on Wednesday shows the driver trying to maneuver the vehicle to flee the scene but colliding into two other vehicles. He is then pulled from the vehicle and beaten. TV footage from the scene showed the driver motionless on the ground.
A doctor at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital says the driver is hospitalized with serious injuries. Dr. Eyal Hashiva told reporters he suffered major trauma to his entire body but was in stable condition.
However, the suburb of Bat Yam’s Deputy Mayor Eyal Yariv told Channel 12 that police did not respond to city hall’s calls for assistance. Police said they deployed forces along the city’s border with Jaffa to prevent the mob from entering the Arab neighborhood.
Violent unrest has involved Jewish and Arab throngs in Lod, Acre, and Tiberias since the latest escalation between Israel and the Palestinians erupted this week.
Pictured: A video grab from footage released by Kan 11 Public broadcaster on May 12, 2021, shows a far-right Israeli mob attacking who they considered an Arab man, on the seafront promenade of Bat Yam
This video grab obtained from a footage released by Kan 11 Public broadcaster on May 12, 2021, shows a far-right Israeli mob attacking who they considered an Arab man, on the seafront promenade of Bat Yam
Also on Wednesday, a crowd of around 100 Jewish protesters marched down Jaffa Street in central Jerusalem, chanting ‘death to Arabs.’
And in the northern city of Acre, an Arab mob attacked and critically injured a Jewish man. Paramedics said the ambulance was also attacked by the crowd en route to a hospital.
The clashes came after one of Israel’s two chief rabbis appealed for restraint as media reported a spread of street attacks by Jews on members of the country’s Arab minority, some of whom have mounted violent protests in solidarity with Gaza Palestinians.
‘We must not be dragged into provocations and inflicting harm on people or property,’ Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said in a statement. ‘The Torah of Israel grants no license for taking the law into one’s hands and acting violently.’
Britain, the United States and Russia among international calls for de-escalation in Israel-Gaza conflict
Calls for deescalation of the conflict have come from senior politicians around the world, including the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia.
America’s President Biden ‘will nominated a qualified, experienced ambassador to Israel over the coming weeks,’ White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday. ‘Our objective here is deescalation as we look to protecting people in the region.’
Biden’s British counterpart Boris Johnson Boris condemned the spiralling conflict, saying he was ‘urging Israel and the Palestinians to step back from the brink and for both sides to show restraint’ on Wednesday morning.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for an urgent meeting of the Middle East Quartet in order to halt violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
Pictured: Rockets fired from Gaza fly towards Israel, as seen from Gaza City, 12 May 2021
Ms Psaki said that the Biden administration has ‘had more than 25, high level calls and meetings by senior US officials with senior officials from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and their partners and other stakeholders.
‘A lot of it is happening, privately through diplomatic channels, it’s happening with officials in the region we’re in regular dialogue, multiple times per day as I noted with the Egyptian and Qatari officials, who have significant influence over Hamas – and our objective here is descalation as we look to protecting the people to reach out.’
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has called Netanyahu to reaffirm America’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks.
The country’s State Department said he also repeated U.S. calls for a de-escalation of violence and the Biden administration’s belief that both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live in safety and security.
Blinken announced earlier he was sending a senior diplomat to the region to make similar appeals in person to Israeli and Palestinian officials. He also said that Israel had an ‘extra burden’ to avoid civilian casualties as it responds to the attacks.
According to the State Department, Blinken also told Netanyahu that as he and President Joe Biden have said in the past, the administration believes Israelis and Palestinians should ‘enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and democracy.’
He also ’emphasised the need for Israelis and Palestinians to be able to live in safety and security, as well as enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and democracy,’ in an apparent effort for the Biden administration to demonstrate that it cares about Palestinian rights, according to Politico.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he wants to see an ‘urgent de-escalation of tensions’ between Israel and Hamas amid the most severe outbreak of violence since the 2014 Gaza war.
Black smoke billows after a series of Israeli airstrikes targeted Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza strip early on Wednesday. According to military experts, the plumes of smoke seen rising suggest the Israelis are deploying bunker buster bombs, targeting underground infrastructure
Johnson tweeted on Wednesday that the United Kingdom is ‘deeply concerned’ and urged leaders to ‘step back from the brink.’
He was one of many leaders around the world offering up advice after longtime tensions in contested Jerusalem erupted into rocket-fire from the Gaza Strip and an intense response from Israel.
British Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly told Parliament that Britain ‘unequivocally condemns the firing of rockets at Jerusalem and other locations in Israel.’ He called Hamas’ conduct ‘terrorism’ and called on militants to ‘end their incitement and rocket fire against Israel.’
Cleverly said Israel has a ‘legitimate right to self-defense,’ but added that in doing so, ‘it is vital that all actions are proportionate, in line with international humanitarian law and make every effort to avoid civilian casualties.’
Hamas militants and their allies have fired more than 1,000 missiles at Israel, though many have been shot down by the Iron Dome defence system, while others have landed inside Gaza. The Israeli towns of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Yehud have been struck, as well as the most populous city, Tel Aviv. In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Air Force has targeted suspected Hamas strongholds in Gaza City as well as the southern settlements Rafah and Khan Yunis
Terrifying footage shows Hamas rocket blow up a bus, yards from civilians
Terrifying video footage has emerged of a rocket launched by Hamas militants blowing up a bus in Israel as civilians watched on in horror.
Video shows the city bus erupting in flames, with black smoke billowing from the burning vehicle, in the central city of Holon, just south of Tel Aviv, last night.
In other videos, dozens of Israel’s Iron Dome defence system’s missiles can be seen lighting up the night sky yesterday as they shot down a bombardment of rockets fired by Hamas militants.
Residents of Tel Aviv, Israel’s most populous city, hid in their houses and under shelters as scores of rockets were seen flying overhead before they were struck down by Israeli missiles.
Video shows the city bus erupting in flames, with black smoke billowing from the burning vehicle, in the central city of Holon, just south of Tel Aviv, last night
Just after daybreak, the Israeli Air Force unleashed dozens of strikes within the course of a few minutes with what appeared to be bunker buster bombs targeting underground Hamas infrastructure.
The Israeli Defence Forces later dispatched two infantry brigades to the area of a downed militant drone, indicating preparations for a possible ground invasion.
Boris Johnson condemned the spiralling conflict this morning hours after his former counterpart Donald Trump blamed ‘weak’ Joe Biden for allowing things to escalate.
‘I am urging Israel and the Palestinians to step back from the brink and for both sides to show restraint,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘The UK is deeply concerned by the growing violence and civilian casualties.’
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab spoke to the Israeli foreign minister on Tuesday and will speak to the Palestinian prime minister on Wednesday, MPs were told in Westminster.
Despite international condemnation for the bloodshed, the worst since the 2014 war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for ceasefire, vowing last night to ‘step up’ attacks.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in turn that ‘if Israel wants to escalate, we are ready for it’.
The tensions began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Muslim neighbourhoods ignited protests and clashes with police. On Monday, a riot on Temple Mount left hundreds of Palestinians wounded before Hamas started launching rockets.
The International Criminal Court at the Hague announced this morning it was looking at possible ‘crimes’ committed as the ferocious cross-border engagement entered its third day.
‘I note with great concern the escalation of violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in and around Gaza, and the possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statute (which founded the ICC)’, Fatou Bensouda tweeted.
More than a hundred Hamas rockets were launched at Israel’s most populous city, Tel Aviv, last night after a tower block in Gaza suspected of being a Hamas headquarters was destroyed by an Israeli air strike.
Palestinian women check the damage inside their apartment on Wednesday morning after it was bombed by the Israelis
Smoke billows from an Israeli bombardment at sunrise on Khan Yunish in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday
A Palestinian father carries his children away from their home to head to a safer neighbourhood after a bombardment warning on Wednesday
Palestinians assess the damage caused by an Israeli air strike in the town of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on May 12, 2021. Heavy exchanges of rocket fire and air strikes, and rioting in mixed Jewish-Arab towns, fuelled fears today that deadly violence between Israel and Palestinians could spiral into ‘full-scale war’
A Palestinian man takes pictures of the aftermath of a bombardment on Wednesday morning as a mound of dirt lies in the street beside mangled cars in Gaza City
Smoke billows from an Israeli air strike on a tower block in Gaza as it collapses. 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.
Israelis sing to keep their spirits up in a Tel Aviv bomb shelter
Footage has emerged of Israelis singing in a bomb shelter as fighting between the Jewish state and Hamas intensified today amid warnings of all-out war.
The video was taken in Tel Aviv overnight as the city was targeted by a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza.
It shows a large group of people standing in what appears to be a basement car park being led in song by Shuli Rand, a well-known Jewish actor and musician.
The song is called Between Holiness and Secularity, and the lyrics that appear in the video translate as: ‘Please save me and please keep me from harm.’
What’s happening now in the Holy Land… A bomb shelter in Tel Aviv.
Footage has emerged of Israelis in a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv overnight singing as the city was targeted by 201 Hamas rockets
Tel Aviv found itself targeted overnight by rockets as Hamas said 210 rockets had been fired at the city, which is Israel’s most-populous.
The strike was in retaliation for a multi-storey block of apartments that was blown up in Gaza, Hamas said.
At least 65 people have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated on Monday, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Six people have been killed in Israel, medical officials said.
The IDF have assassinated several top militant commanders, including Hassan Kaogi, head of the Hamas intelligence department, in their airstrikes.
In a statement, the army said it carried out a ‘complex and first-of-its-kind operation.’ Those targeted, it said, were ‘a key part of the Hamas ‘General Staff” and considered close to the head of the group’s military wing.
Hamas later confirmed they had lost several of their top brass, including its military chief in Gaza City, Bassem Issa.
The Israelis accuse the Palestinian fighters of using their own people as human shields, but the civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip have only hardened the position of the extremists who have launched hundreds more missiles.
In Israel’s central city of Lod, a girl and her father were killed in the early hours of Wednesday by rocket fire from Gaza. Israel’s foreign ministry identified the girl 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,’ Ismail told Kan.
Lod also saw riots 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.
The Israeli President Reuven Rivlin described it as a ‘pogrom’ carried out by a ‘bloodthirsty Arab mob,’ after Netanyahu declared a state of emergency in the mixed Jewish-Arab city.
‘The sight of the pogrom in Lod and the disturbances across the country by an incited and bloodthirsty Arab mob, injuring people, damaging property and even attacking sacred Jewish spaces is unforgivable,’ Rivlin said.
Yair Revivo, mayor of the city, last night called for army back-up to help secure the area, saying ‘civil war’ was breaking out.
‘This is Kristallnacht in Lod,’ said Revivo, in reference to the Nazi pogrom against German Jews in 1938.
‘I have called on the prime minister to declare a state of emergency in Lod. To call in the IDF. To impose a curfew. To restore quiet. There is a failure of governance.
‘This is a giant incident – an Intifada of Arab Israelis. All the work we have done here for years [on coexistence] has gone down the drain.’
Netanhayu made a pre-dawn tour of the city to declare a state of emergency.
‘We will not tolerate this; we need to restore calm,’ Netanyahu said in Lod. ‘If this isn’t an emergency situation, I don’t know what is. We are talking about life and death here.’
A thick black column of smoke and red flames rise into the sky over Gaza on Wednesday during Israeli bombardments
A Palestnian family flee their home on Wednesday to head to a safety from Israeli airstrikes as rubble fills the street
A fire rages at sunrise in Khan Yunish in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning as Israel’s bombardment of Hamas targets continues
Israeli artillery in action as the escalation continues between Israeli army and Hamas at the Gaza border
A colossal crater blown into a Gaza street is seen on Wednesday beside wrecked shops and homes in nearby tower blocks
An overturned car lies in the street filled with debris after a tower block was levelled in Gaza by Israeli warplanes last night
Smoke billows over Gaza on Wednesday as the Israeli bombardments continued throughout the night and into dawn
A Palestinian boy walks past rubble on a street in Gaza City on Wednesday after bombardments by the Israeli Air Force throughout the night
Display mannequins from a damaged clothing shop are scattered amid the debris outside the heavily-damaged Al-Jawhara Tower in Gaza on Wednesday morning
Cars are wrecked by rubble after buildings collapsed last night in Gaza during the Israeli barrages
An Israeli security officer comforts a man in the town of Holon near Tel Aviv during rocket attacks by militants in Gaza on Tuesday night
Two Palestinian women survey the damage to their bombed out flat in Gaza City on Wednesday morning
Footage released by the IDF shows precision airstrikes on densely populated Gaza
IDF announced they had killed at least four Hamas commanders on Wednesday. They included Gaza City Brigade chief Bassem Issa; Jamaa Tahla, responsible for the improved accuracy of the group’s rockets; Jamal Zabeda, chief of ‘special projects’ in the munitions department; and Hazzem Hatib, head engineer in the munitions wing.
TRUMP: ‘WEAK’ BIDEN TO BLAME FOR CONFLICT
Former US President Donald Trump blamed his successor Joe Biden’s ‘weakness’ for the renewed clashes in the Middle East. Writing on his website Trump, he said:
‘When I was in office we were known as the Peace Presidency, because Israel’s adversaries knew that the United States stood strongly with Israel and there would be swift retribution if Israel was attacked.
‘Under Biden, the world is getting more violent and more unstable because Biden’s weakness and lack of support for Israel is leading to new attacks on our allies.
‘America must always stand with Israel and make clear that the Palestinians must end the violence, terror, and rocket attacks, and make clear that the U.S. will always strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself.
‘Unbelievably, Democrats also continue to stand by crazed anti-American Rep. Ilhan Omar, and others, who savagely attack Israel while they are under terrorist assault.’
Asked whether the actions of the police against protesters may have played a role, he shut down the suggestion, saying: ‘These events have no excuse; this is fundamental hate.’
It comes after the PM, speaking after two women were killed in Hamas strikes yesterday, said he ‘deplored’ the deaths in Israel, adding that the country’s military would ‘further increase both the intensity and the rate’ of its own air strikes against Gaza.
‘Hamas will be hit in ways that it does not expect,’ Netanyahu said. ‘We have eliminated commanders, hit many important targets and we have decided to attack harder and increase the pace of attacks.’
The homes of three Hamas commanders were destroyed overnight on Wednesday.
A significant barrage had begun by 3am, with Israel firing into the Gaza Strip.
‘In response to HUNDREDS of rockets in the last 24 hours, the IDF has struck a number of significant terror targets and terror operatives across the Gaza Strip, marking our largest strike since 2014,’ the IDF confirmed.
‘We are currently striking more terror targets in Gaza.’
In Israel, five people including three women have been killed.
One of the three women was in her 60s and another in her 80s, and died during Hamas rocket attacks earlier on Tuesday.
The third woman, aged 50, was killed on Tuesday evening when a rocket hit a building in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion.
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