Israel pounds Gaza as US envoy arrives for talks
Published: 10:05 PM,May 15,2021 | EDITED : 08:05 PM,May 15,2021
A ball of fire erupts from the Jala Tower as it is destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza city on Saturday. - AFP
GAZA CITY: Israel pounded the Gaza Strip overnight killing 10 members of an extended family while rockets smashed into Israel on Saturday, amid violence in the West Bank and as a US envoy arrived for talks.
On the sixth day since military conflict escalated, the death toll rose as the two sides exchanged heavy barrages of fire.
US Secretary for Israel-Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was due to meet Israeli leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday before heading to the occupied West Bank for talks with Palestinian officials. He wants to encourage a 'sustainable calm', State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter said.
Washington has been criticised for not doing more to end the intensifying violence, after it blocked a UN Security Council meeting scheduled for Friday.
Eleven Palestinians were killed in clashes in the occupied West Bank on Friday, and there were fears of worse violence as Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, the 'catastrophe' of Israel's creation in 1948, which turned hundreds of thousands into refugees.
Despite intensifying diplomatic efforts to ease five days of fighting between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza, Israel's fighter jets struck several sites in the coastal enclave overnight, while rockets again tore towards Israel.
On Saturday afternoon, a rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza killed an Israeli when it hit his building in the central town of Ramat Gen, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
An Israeli strike on a three-storey building in the Shati refugee camp killed 10 members of an extended family -- two related mothers and their four children each.
Mohammed al Hadidi said he had lost most of his family overnight.
'What did they do to deserve this? We're civilians,' said the devastated father, whose surviving five-month-old baby was wounded in the strike.
'They are striking our children -- children -- without previous warning'.
Israeli air and artillery strikes on Gaza since last Monday have killed 139 people including 39 children, and wounded 1,000 more, health officials say.
Egypt opened its Rafah border crossing with Gaza on Saturday to allow in 10 ambulances to ferry out seriously wounded Palestinians for treatment, medical officials said.
Israel, which is also trying to contain an outbreak of internal Jewish-Arab violence, is facing its bloodiest conflict with Palestinians in Gaza since a 2014 war.
Its bombardment began last Monday, after the Hamas fired rockets towards Jerusalem.
That was in response to bloody Israeli police action at the flashpoint Al Aqsa mosque compound, as well as a crackdown on protests against the planned Israeli expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in annexed east Jerusalem.
Palestinian armed groups have fired hundreds of rockets at Israel since, killing 10 people, including a child and a soldier. More than 560 Israelis have been wounded.
Between 7:00 pm last Friday and 7:00 am on Saturday, some 200 rockets were fired at southern Israel, over 100 of which were intercepted by air defences, the Israeli military said.
Some 10,000 Palestinians have fled homes near the Israeli border for fear of a ground offensive, the United Nations said.
'They are sheltering in schools, mosques and other places during a global Covid-19 pandemic with limited access to water, food, hygiene and health services, said UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied territories, Lynn Hastings.
Kamal al Haddad, who fled with his family to a UN-supported school in Gaza City, said: 'All the children are afraid, and we are afraid for the children'.
The West Bank saw fierce clashes on Friday, with the Palestinian health ministry saying Israeli fire killed 11 people. SEE ALSO P6
On the sixth day since military conflict escalated, the death toll rose as the two sides exchanged heavy barrages of fire.
US Secretary for Israel-Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was due to meet Israeli leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday before heading to the occupied West Bank for talks with Palestinian officials. He wants to encourage a 'sustainable calm', State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter said.
Washington has been criticised for not doing more to end the intensifying violence, after it blocked a UN Security Council meeting scheduled for Friday.
Eleven Palestinians were killed in clashes in the occupied West Bank on Friday, and there were fears of worse violence as Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, the 'catastrophe' of Israel's creation in 1948, which turned hundreds of thousands into refugees.
Despite intensifying diplomatic efforts to ease five days of fighting between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza, Israel's fighter jets struck several sites in the coastal enclave overnight, while rockets again tore towards Israel.
On Saturday afternoon, a rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza killed an Israeli when it hit his building in the central town of Ramat Gen, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
An Israeli strike on a three-storey building in the Shati refugee camp killed 10 members of an extended family -- two related mothers and their four children each.
Mohammed al Hadidi said he had lost most of his family overnight.
'What did they do to deserve this? We're civilians,' said the devastated father, whose surviving five-month-old baby was wounded in the strike.
'They are striking our children -- children -- without previous warning'.
Israeli air and artillery strikes on Gaza since last Monday have killed 139 people including 39 children, and wounded 1,000 more, health officials say.
Egypt opened its Rafah border crossing with Gaza on Saturday to allow in 10 ambulances to ferry out seriously wounded Palestinians for treatment, medical officials said.
Israel, which is also trying to contain an outbreak of internal Jewish-Arab violence, is facing its bloodiest conflict with Palestinians in Gaza since a 2014 war.
Its bombardment began last Monday, after the Hamas fired rockets towards Jerusalem.
That was in response to bloody Israeli police action at the flashpoint Al Aqsa mosque compound, as well as a crackdown on protests against the planned Israeli expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in annexed east Jerusalem.
Palestinian armed groups have fired hundreds of rockets at Israel since, killing 10 people, including a child and a soldier. More than 560 Israelis have been wounded.
Between 7:00 pm last Friday and 7:00 am on Saturday, some 200 rockets were fired at southern Israel, over 100 of which were intercepted by air defences, the Israeli military said.
Some 10,000 Palestinians have fled homes near the Israeli border for fear of a ground offensive, the United Nations said.
'They are sheltering in schools, mosques and other places during a global Covid-19 pandemic with limited access to water, food, hygiene and health services, said UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied territories, Lynn Hastings.
Kamal al Haddad, who fled with his family to a UN-supported school in Gaza City, said: 'All the children are afraid, and we are afraid for the children'.
The West Bank saw fierce clashes on Friday, with the Palestinian health ministry saying Israeli fire killed 11 people. SEE ALSO P6