Israeli turns fire on to Hamas tunnels under civilian areas

The most intense fighting since 2014 has seen Israeli soldiers amassing on the edge of the blockaded territory of Gaza.

A self-propelled howitzer fires across the border from near Sderot. Picture: Reuters

Israel bombarded Gaza with artillery and airstrikes on Friday after a new barrage of rocket fire from the Hamas-run enclave, intensifying a conflict that has so far claimed 128 lives.

The Israeli army said its overnight operation involved fighter jets and tanks hitting a Hamas tunnel network dug under civilian areas.

It said it “wasn’t feasible this time” to forewarn civilians as it did ahead of strikes on Gaza tower blocks earlier this week.

The bombardment with huge fireballs turned the night sky orange as explosions rocked the ground.

Several homes in densely populated Gaza were destroyed or heavily damaged, while rockets tore through the skies towards ­Israel.

Muhammad Najib, a 16-year-old resident of Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood, compared the bombing to a video game. “It’s like a horror film,” he said.

Israeli soldiers have massed on the edge of the blockaded territory in the most intense fighting since 2014 between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.

Army spokesman Jonathan Conricus on Friday took responsibility for an erroneous overnight report that ground forces had ­entered Gaza, but confirmed ground troops had taken part in an operation carried out from Israeli territory targeting tunnels dug under the border.

“There are no … ground troops inside Gaza at the moment,” Lieutenant Colonel Conricus said.

The conflict has killed 119 Palestinians, including 31 children, and wounded more than 830, Gaza’s Health Minister said.

Rockets are fired from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday. Picture: AFP

An Israeli woman in her 80s died overnight from injuries sustained while seeking shelter from rocket fire, bringing the toll on the Israeli side to nine dead, including a six-year-old boy and a soldier.

Security forces have also been scrambling to contain deadly riots between Jews and Arabs, and rockets have been fired from Lebanon.

The UN said the Security Council would meet on Sunday to address the conflict as Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a “cessation of hostilities”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “deeply concerned about the violence in the streets of Israel”, and the State Department urged citizens to “reconsider travel to Israel”.

Several international airlines — including KLM, British Airways, Virgin, Lufthansa and Iberia — cancelled flights amid the aerial onslaught.

Since Monday, Palestinian militant groups have fired more than 1800 rockets towards Israel, mostly towards southern cities, but also at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Hundreds have been intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system. Israel has hit about 750 sites it described as military targets such as Hamas bomb-making facilities and the homes of senior militant commanders.

It estimates that more than 30 leaders of Hamas and its ally ­Islamic Jihad have been killed.

Three tower blocks in Gaza have been levelled.

The heavy bombardments coincided with the start of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, and saw the faithful pray at mosques and amid the rubble of Gaza’s collapsed buildings.

Three rockets were also fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel, landing in the Mediterranean Sea, the Israeli army said. A source close to Hezbollah said the Lebanese Shi’ite group had no link to the incident.

Surveying the damage from a rocket in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. Pictrure: Reuters

With the conflict showing no signs of easing, Israel has been rocked by an unprecedented wave of mob violence, in which Arabs and Jews have been savagely beaten and police stations attacked. Defence Minister Benny Gantz ­ordered a “massive reinforcement” to suppress the internal unrest.

The disturbances, in which riot police had repeatedly clashed with Palestinians, has been driven by anger over the looming evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheik Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem.

More than 750 people have been arrested this week, including more than 100 overnight, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Officers detained Jewish Israelis “walking around looking for trouble” in Netanya and Beersheba, while Arab citizens attacked police with petrol bombs, he said.

In Lod, where an Arab man was shot dead by a Jewish Israeli on Monday, the outside of a synagogue was burnt overnight while 43 people were arrested, Mr ­Rosenfeld said.

In one of the most shocking ­episodes of the intercommunal ­violence, a far-right mob beat a man they considered an Arab in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, leaving him with serious injuries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said police were increasing their use of force, warning of the “option” of deploying soldiers in towns.

Mr Netanyahu said the violence was “unacceptable”. “Nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews, and nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs,” he said, adding Israel was fighting a battle “on two fronts”.

Amid the rocket fire, Israel’s civil aviation authority said it had diverted all incoming passenger flights headed for Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport to Ramon airport in the south. Hamas announced it had also fired a rocket at Ramon in a bid to stop air traffic to Israel.

The military escalation was triggered by weekend unrest at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

AFP