Jerusalem/Gaza:
Violent clashes more than Jerusalem escalated substantially on Monday with Gaza overall health officials saying at least 20 people today, such as nine children, have been killed by Israeli air strikes launched right after Palestinian militant groups fired rockets close to Jerusalem
Israel’s military stated it carried out strikes against armed groups, rocket launchers and military posts in Gaza right after militants there crossed what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu known as a “red line” by firing on the Jerusalem location for the initial time due to the fact a 2014 war.
The rocket fire and Israeli air strikes continued late into the evening, with Palestinians reporting loud explosions close to Gaza City and across the coastal strip. Shortly prior to midnight regional time, Israel’s military stated Palestinian militants had fired about 150 rockets into Israel, of which dozens have been intercepted by its missile defence systems.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated the rocket attacks from Gaza against Israel ought to quit “immediately.” He urged all sides to take methods to lessen tensions.
Monday started with early-morning confrontations at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the heart of Jerusalem’s walled Old City on the compound identified to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary – the most sensitive website in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated more than 300 Palestinians have been injured in clashes with Israeli police, who fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas in the compound. Police stated 21 officers have been hurt in the skirmishes.
The upsurge in violence came as Israel celebrated “Jerusalem Day”, marking its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
In an work to defuse tensions, police changed the route of a regular Jerusalem Day march, in which thousands of Israeli flag-waving Jewish youth have been due to stroll by means of the Old City close to Damascus Gate, a flashpoint in current weeks.
But despite the fact that the problems had died down by mid-morning, there have been other focal points of tension, such as the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem just north of the Old City exactly where a number of Palestinian households face eviction from residences claimed by Jewish settlers in a extended-operating legal case.
Demanding that Israel get rid of its police from Al-Aqsa and Sheikh Jarrah, Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, set a 6 p.m. (1500 GMT) deadline for the forces to be withdrawn.
Even as the marchers have been diverted toward Jaffa Gate, sirens sounded alerting Israelis to incoming rockets from Gaza, forcing the marchers and other Israelis to flee for cover in Jerusalem, nearby towns and in Israeli communities close to Gaza.
Israel views all of Jerusalem as its capital, such as the eastern portion that it annexed right after the 1967 war in a move that has not won international recognition. Palestinians want East Jerusalem for the capital of a state they seek in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Tension had been developing for weeks in the course of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, amid clashes involving Israeli safety forces and Palestinian protesters prompting international concern that events could spiral out of handle.[L8N2MX0K2]
Hamas and the smaller sized Islamic Jihad militant group claimed duty for the rocket fire on Jerusalem.
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, stated it had launched “a rocket strike against the enemy in the occupied Jerusalem in response to their crimes and aggression against the holy city and its aggression against our people in Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Aqsa mosque.”
In response, Netanyahu stated: “The terrorist organisations crossed a red line on Jerusalem Day and attacked us, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.”
He added: “Israel will respond very forcefully. We will not tolerate attacks on our territory, our capital, our citizens and our soldiers. Whoever strikes us will pay a heavy price.”
VIOLENCE About AL-AQSA MOSQUE
For Hamas, some commentators stated, its challenge to Israel was a sign to Palestinians that it rather than Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was now calling the shots in holding Israel accountable for events in Jerusalem.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus stated that at least six of the rockets fired from Gaza have been launched towards Jerusalem’s outskirts, exactly where a residence was hit. No casualties have been reported.
“We have started to attack Hamas military targets,” Conricus stated in a briefing to reporters, placing no timeframe on any Israeli offensive. “Hamas will pay a heavy price.”
He stated the military was seeking into reports that children had been killed.
“We had multiple events of rockets fired by Gaza terrorists falling short. This might be the same,” Conricus stated.
Along the fortified Gaza-Israeli border, a Palestinian anti-tank missile fired from the tiny coastal territory struck a civilian car, injuring one Israeli, he stated.
After understanding of the deaths in Gaza, President Abbas decided to cancel celebrations of the upcoming Eid El-Fitr that marks the finish of Ramadan, and limit them to religious rituals only, according to a statement published by the official WAFA news agency.
The report stated he also decided to reduce flags to half-mast “to mourn the souls of the martyrs of our people who were killed in the Israeli bombardment on Gaza Strip.”
International efforts to stem the violence appeared to have currently begun. A Palestinian official told Reuters that Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations, which have mediated truces involving Israel and Hamas in the previous, have been in speak to with the group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh.
(This story has not been edited by TheSpuzz employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)