Palestinian fighter groups in Gaza said yesterday they would halt cross-border attacks immediately if Israel did the same after the most serious exchanges of aerial fire since a seven-week war in 2014.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, responded by putting the onus on the Palestinians to stop their strikes, saying Israel’s actions would be determined by their “steps on the ground”. Since Monday, Israeli air strikes have killed seven Palestinians, at least five of them gunmen, armed factions said.
Rocket attacks from Gaza killed a Palestinian, a resident of the occupied West Bank, living in an apartment in Israel, where he worked.
The salvoes were the fiercest since the Gaza war in 2014, the third between Israel and Hamas in a decade as part of the wider Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Yesterday, the joint command of the Palestinian armed factions in Gaza said in a statement they would abide by a ceasefire mediated by neighbouring Egypt “as long as the Zionist enemy does the same”. As far as the factions were concerned, an official in one of the Palestinian groups told Reuters, “the truce has gone into effect”, conditional on Israel’ actions.
Hamas and other armed factions fired over 400 rockets or mortar bombs across the fenced border after carrying out a surprise guided-missile attack on Monday on a bus that wounded an Israeli soldier, the military said.
Asked if Israel was heading towards a ceasefire, Yuval Steinitz, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told YNet Internet TV:
“I would say that a more accurate definition is that the Israeli military landed a harsh and unprecedented blow on Hamas and the fighter groups in Gaza, and we will see if that will suffice or whether further blows will be required.”
Hamas said it was retaliating for a botched Israeli commando raid in Gaza that killed one of its commanders and six other gunmen on Sunday.
An Israeli colonel was also killed in that incident.
Sirens rang out in southern Israeli towns yesterday and people ran for shelter after Palestinian rockets crashed into several homes overnight.
The military said the Iron Dome anti-rocket system intercepted more than 100 projectiles. Israel responded with dozens of air strikes, hitting buildings overnight that included a Hamas intelligence compound and the studios of Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Television, whose employees had received advance warnings from the military to evacuate.
In aerial attacks yesterday, Israel’s military said it took out a rocket-launching squad and fired at several Palestinians infiltrating through the border fence around Gaza, which Israel keeps under blockade.
In Gaza City, people gathered in front of a large mound of debris that was once a multi-floor structure. It was flanked by five-storey buildings still standing after the air strike, their shattered stone facades adding to the tall pile of rubble.
Violence has simmered since Palestinians launched weekly border protests on March 30 to demand the easing of the blockade on Gaza and the right to return to lands lost in the 1948 war of Israel’s founding. Israeli troops have killed more that 220 Palestinians during the confrontations, which have included border breaches.
In fighting over the past two days, Israeli missiles flattened seven buildings, mostly in Gaza City including the TV station. Abdallah Abu Habboush, 22, said he was awakened by shouts from neighbours to get out of his residential building after what Israel terms the “tap on the roof” warning. They all gathered in a room on the first floor to wait out the attack.
Meanwhile, an Israeli strike in the northern Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian yesterday, Gaza’s health ministry said, raising the death toll in the enclave to five in less than 24 hours. The Israeli military said its aircraft had fired towards a fighter who was part of a group launching projectiles at its territory, without confirming the death. The ministry identified the man killed as Khaled al-Sultan, 26. Another person was wounded, it said.

Turkey urges Israel 
to ‘stop’ strikes

Turkey yesterday called on Israel to “immediately stop” strikes against the Gaza Strip, urging the international community to act as the escalation in violence threatened to descend into full-blown conflict. “Israel must immediately stop its attacks against the Gaza population,” Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said, quoted by state news agency Anadolu. “The international community, which stays silent in the face of Israel’s attacks, must take responsibility and take action,” he added.


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