The Israeli military has continued its bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip early on Wednesday, targeting several areas after rockets were fired from the enclave.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the overall death toll since the start of the latest offensive stood at 67, including 16 children. More than 300 others have been wounded.
At least six Israelis( Jews), including one child, have also been killed. The Israeli army said about 1,500 rockets have been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.
Health authorities in Gaza said at least 67 Palestinians – including 16 children and six israeli jews– were killed in Israeli air strikes on the Strip since late on Monday, after Hamas launched rockets from the coastal territory towards Israel. At least 250 others were injured.
The rocket fire came after Hamas, which rules Gaza, issued an ultimatum demanding Israel stand down its security forces from the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem after days of violence against Palestinians.
Israeli police stormed the compound on Monday for a third consecutive day, firing rubber-coated steel rounds, stun grenades and tear gas at Palestinian worshippers inside the mosque in the final days of the holy month of Ramadan.
More than 700 Palestinians were hurt in Jerusalem and across the occupied West Bank in recent days.
A large fire is seen near the scene of what Israeli officials said was a Gaza rocket attack on an Israeli energy pipeline near Ashkelon early on Wednesday [Ilan Rosenberg/Reuters]
Israeli authorities reported on Wednesday that a Gaza rocket attack has hit an Israeli pipeline near Ashkelon causing a large fire.
The Gaza-based Palestinian group, Hamas, has vowed to hit Israeli targets in retaliation against air strikes on Gaza Strip and the police attack on Palestinian worshippers at Al Aqsa Mosque.
Israeli air strikes on Wednesday morning, the heaviest since the operation started on Monday, hit several police stations in the Gaza Strip.
Reporting from Gaza,a Journalist said that the main police headquarters in the Palestinian territory was also “completely destroyed.”
Kahlout also reported that the death toll from the Israeli strikes has risen to 36, with 250 others injured.
Overnight, tens of families have been left homeless after their homes were also destroyed by Israeli air strikes, Kahlout reported.
A social media post by Omar El Qattaa showed the moment Israeli strikes hit several targets in Gaza.
According to social media posts and news reports, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has reportedly deployed its tanks to its southern border with the Palestinian territory of Gaza, signaling a new phase in its operation against Palestinians.
Israeli and Palestinian analysts have also confirmed on Wednesday the movement of tanks near the Israeli border.
Dov Waxman, an analysts from the University of California, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces have been moving their tanks near the border, but it is still unclear if it is preparing for a prolonged operation.
“I don’t think that the Israeli government would want to initiate a major ground incursion,” he said, but also cautioned that the situation on the ground could go out of control fomenting more violence.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has announced that its fighter jets have “neutralised key figures of Hamas’ intelligence” in the Gaza strip.
In a social media post early on Wednesday, IDF identified the officials as Hassan Kaogi, head of the Hamas military intelligence security department, as well as his deputy, Wail Issa, head of the military intelligence counterespionage department.
There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas regarding the claim.
Phyllis Bennis, an analyst at the US-based Institute for Policy Studies, said that “as long as the US is not prepared to hold Israel to account”, any statements from the Biden administration about the ongoing violence would not lead to a de-escalation.
“We keep hearing from President Biden that he wants a foreign policy that’s based on human rights. What we are not seeing is any actual commitment to human rights – and certainly in this case, there’s no willingness to use political capital,” Bennis told Al Jazeera in an interview.
Yara Asi, a non-resident fellow at Arab Center Washington, DC and a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Central Florida, also said that when the US funnels $3.8bn in military aid to Israel annually and provides diplomatic and political cover to the Israeli government in international arenas such as the United Nations, it is “disingenuous” for Washington to try to be disengaged.
“There is no more intimate external actor outside of Israelis and Palestinians than the United States, and this has been the case for decades – and it is continuing,” she told Al Jazeera.
At least two more people were reported killed in the Israeli city of Lod, also known as al-Lydd, after a rocket fired from Gaza hit the area.
That brings to five the number of people killed in Israel due to rockets fired from Gaza.
Some news reports identified the latest fatalities as an Israeli woman and her seven-year-old son. Other reports said the two were of Israelis of Arab descent.
Unrests have erupted across Israel on Tuesday night and into Wednesday in support of Palestinian rights.
Social media posts showed fiery protests in Rahat, a predominantly Bedouin city in southern Israel as well as in Qalansawe, an Israeli Arab town in central Israel.
Earleir, the Israeli government declared a state of emergency in Lod, southeast of Tel Aviv also known in Arabic as al-Lydd, amid escalating violence following the killing of a Palestinian citizen by a Jewish Israeli in the city
Pregnant Palestinian woman, 5-year-old son killed in latest Israeli strike
A woman, who is four months pregnant, and her five-year-old son, were reported killed following the latest Israeli air strike on their house in Tel al-Hawa, a neighbourhood in the southern part of Gaza.
The deaths of the woman, identified only as Reem, and her son, Zaid, was reported on social media by her brother, Ahmed Saad.
At least 35 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the latest strikes, which Israel said were in response to rockets fired by Hamas into Israeli.