At least 83 Palestinians and seven people in Israel have been killed since violence escalated on Monday with fierce street clashes between Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, rocket attacks and counter air strikes in Gaza.
Amidst further air strikes, Israel said its targets in Gaza included intelligence buildings, a bank and a Hamas naval squad as the Palestinian militant groups continue to fire rockets towards Israel.
The four days of cross-border violence showed no sign of abating and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the campaign “will take more time”.
Worried that the region’s worst hostilities in years could spiral out of control, the United States is sending an envoy, Hady Amr. Previous truce efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations have so far proved futile.
In renewed air strikes on Gaza, Israeli warplanes struck a six-storey residential building that it said belonged to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Palestinian enclave. Netanyahu said Israel has struck close to a thousand militant targets in Gaza in total.
A Palestinian rocket had earlier crashed into a building near Israel’s commercial capital of Tel Aviv, injuring five Israelis, police said. Seven people have been killed in Israel since hostilities began, the Israeli military said.
Israel has prepared combat troops along the Gaza border and was in “various stages of preparing ground operations”, a military spokesman said, a move that would recall similar incursions during Israel-Gaza wars in 2014 and 2008-2009.
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