No ceasefire in sight: Israel flies “heaviest air strikes to date”


No ceasefire in sight
Israel flies “heaviest air strikes to date”

It is the seventh consecutive night that rockets have been flying from Gaza towards Israel. The army responds with further massive air strikes on Hamas targets. Foreign countries are trying to de-escalate, but the conflicting parties want to continue their trial of strength.

Despite international efforts to achieve a ceasefire, the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip continues. According to its own statements, Israel’s military also attacked large-scale targets in the coastal area on the night of Monday. The army shelled the houses of nine high-ranking Hamas commanders. Some were also used as an arsenal, it said. Missiles flew from Gaza into neighboring areas in Israel.

“Our campaign against the terrorist organizations is continuing with full force,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. The army has so far attacked more than 1,500 targets in the Gaza Strip. The operation “will still take some time”. From the Palestinian side, it was said that it had been the heaviest air strikes to date in the densely populated coastal area. After massive rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip also on the metropolis of Tel Aviv, the Israeli air force attacked important Hamas leaders over the weekend. Among other things, the house of the head of the Islamist Palestinian group there, Jihia al-Sinwar, was attacked.

In view of the increasing violence with many dead, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a consultation with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud on Sunday. According to the US State Department, the main focus was on ongoing efforts to ease tensions in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to end the violence. Attempts by international mediators to reach a ceasefire have so far been unsuccessful. At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, UN Secretary General António Guterres warned of the uncontrollable consequences of the conflict for the entire Middle East.

Hamas has more potential than before

Israel’s air force also destroyed a high-rise building containing media company offices in the Gaza Strip over the weekend. The residents were warned beforehand by telephone. The AP news agency lost its offices in Gaza and was appalled, journalists’ associations protested. A Hamas secret service office that organized attacks on Israeli civilians was housed in the skyscraper, Netanyahu justified the action on the US broadcaster CBS. So it was “a perfectly legitimate goal”.

According to the Israeli army, at least 3,100 rockets have been fired at Israel since the escalation began on Monday last week. The intensity of the shelling was higher than ever before in a conflict with the Islamist Hamas. Since the Palestinian Organization’s violent seizure of power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel and Hamas have fought three wars.

According to the Ministry of Health there, almost 200 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Monday evening. On Sunday night alone, 42 Palestinians were killed in attacks by the Israeli army on houses in the coastal area. According to rescue workers in Israel, ten people have died from the rocket fire since Monday evening.

Clashes also in Israeli cities

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians had worsened during the Muslim month of fasting Ramadan and after the cancellation of the Palestinian parliamentary election. Police barriers in the old city of Jerusalem, which many young Palestinians perceived as humiliation, are considered to be the trigger. In addition, there were threatened evictions for Palestinian families in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah district and violent clashes on the Temple Mount (Al-Haram al-Sharif) in the old city of Jerusalem. The complex with the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam – and it is also sacred to Jews because two Jewish temples used to stand there. Hamas has declared itself to be the defender of Jerusalem.

There were also serious clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the West Bank, and several people died. Clashes between Jews and Arab Israelis broke out again in several cities in the Israeli heartland. In Jerusalem, six police officers were injured when a driver hit them with a car. The police initially gave no information about the identity of the driver, saying that he had been “neutralized”. The most recent conflict escalated during the attempt to form a government in Israel. The previous opposition leader, Jair Lapid, accused Netanyahu of using the conflict to secure his remaining in office. The Prime Minister disagreed. He had not previously succeeded in forging a majority for a coalition, so that the task of forming a government fell to Lapid.

.