Sunday May 16, 2021
New wave of attacks from Gaza
Netanyahu: “Military action as long as necessary”
The international community is pressing for a swift end to the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas. However, Netanyahu is preparing his people for more “difficult days”. The military wants to kill the Hamas leadership and continue to attack throughout the Gaza Strip that night. Israel has been under rocket fire again since midnight.
According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s military operation against the ruling Hamas in the Gaza Strip will “continue as long as necessary”. Netanyahu said on Saturday evening that the infrastructure of the Islamist Hamas had to be destroyed first. “We have tough days ahead of us, but we will get through them together and win,” said the 71-year-old.
On Sunday night the alarm sirens wailed again in Israel. A “heavy hail of rockets” was fired from the Gaza Strip on central and southern Israel, the army tweeted. Men, women, children and the elderly are in bunkers. A spokesman for the Hamas military arm had previously threatened to fire rockets again at Tel Aviv from midnight.
After the most massive rocket attack by militant Palestinians to date on the greater Tel Aviv area, Israel’s military had stepped up its attacks on senior Hamas members. The air force shot at the houses of Raed Saad, Hamas chief for special operations, and two Hamas commanders in Chan Junis in the south and Dir el-Balach in the central section of the Gaza Strip, the army announced on Saturday evening. There were civilian casualties again: According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, eight children and two women died in the west of the Gaza Strip when a three-story building in the Al-Shati refugee camp collapsed. The Israeli army is examining the reports.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military is threatening the Hamas leadership with targeted killing. Army spokesman Hidai Zilberman announced on Israeli television on Saturday evening that important Hamas and Islamic Jihad institutions throughout the Gaza Strip would continue to be attacked during the night. This also applies to the highest leadership in Hamas.
Horror over attack on press offices
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets three times in quick succession at the coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv on Saturday. A man was killed in the process. The Israeli air force shortly afterwards destroyed a 14-story high-rise building in the Gaza Strip, in which media companies such as the Associated Press (AP) had their offices. The AP news agency reacted with horror. “This is an incredibly worrying development,” said AP President Gary Pruitt on Saturday in New York. “We only narrowly escaped a terrible loss of life.” A dozen AP journalists and freelancers were brought to safety on time. The owner of the house claims to have been warned by the Israeli secret service an hour before the attack and ordered to evacuate the building.
It is the fifth skyscraper to collapse Israel’s army since the recent escalation began on Monday. According to the information, the Qatari TV broadcaster Al-Jazeera (Al-Jazeera) also had an office in the building that was recently destroyed. The Israeli army justified the attack by saying that it also contained military installations belonging to the secret service of the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas. Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU. She has made the destruction of Israel her goal.
A spokesman for the military Hamas arm threatened Tel Aviv with an “answer that will shake the earth”. A commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, General Ismaeil Ghani, assured Hamas unreserved support in the fight against Israel in a phone call with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyah, Iranian state media reported. Haniyah, in turn, thanked Iran for their support and said, according to the Al-Alam news channel, that the fight against Israel is not one of Hamas, but of the entire Islamic world.
Biden speaks to Abbas for the first time
The US is working hard to de-escalate the Gaza conflict. On Saturday, US President Joe Biden telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the second time this week and for the first time also with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The US President declared his commitment to a negotiated two-state solution, the White House said. He also stressed that Hamas must stop firing rockets into Israeli territory. Abbas, however, has no direct influence over Hamas. His Fatah movement is in a rivalry with Hamas.
The US government’s Middle East envoy, Hady Amr, is expected to meet on Sunday for talks with Israeli government officials and subsequently with Palestinian officials. EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell called for respect for international law. There must be full humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, demanded the EU High Representative on Saturday evening after talks with representatives of the conflicting parties. He condemned the rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. Israel has the right to protect its people from these attacks, but must act appropriately and avoid civilian casualties.
According to an Israeli air force officer, Hamas has fired more than 2,300 rockets at Israel since Monday. Israel attacked more than 650 targets in the Gaza Strip during the same period. The conflict between Israel and the ruling Hamas in the Gaza Strip had escalated at the beginning of the week. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, around 145 people have been killed and 1,100 injured since then. As the rescue service Magen David Adom announced, the rocket fire in Israel over the past few days killed ten people and injured 636.
Most recently, Israel’s air force attacked a wide system of tunnels owned by Hamas, which ruled the Gaza Strip. According to her own statements, she used 500 tons of ammunition. A senior officer in the Israeli Air Force said 160 aircraft were involved in the attack on the so-called Metro system on Friday night. It is still unclear whether and how many Hamas fighters were killed in the process. “There are potentially hundreds,” he said.
Foreign media accused the Israeli army of deliberately manipulating them with a tweet shortly before the attack. “Air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip,” it said on Friday night when a ground offensive by Israel was expected. The news, which was spread quickly, is said to have induced numerous Hamas fighters to dive into the underground system. The army denied a little later and spoke of a communication error. There are no Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. According to the officer, Israel has destroyed a total of 31 Hamas and extremist Islamic Jihad rocket workshops. As a result, Hamas is currently no longer able to manufacture new missiles.
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