Israeli troops mass at Gaza border amid rocket fire

GAZA: Palestinian militants fired more rockets into Israel’s commercial heartland on Thursday as Israel kept up a punishing bombing campaign in Gaza and massed tanks and troops on the enclave’s border. The four days of cross-border violence showed no sign of abating and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the campaign “will take more time”. The violence has also spread to mixed communities of Jews and Arabs in Israel, a new front in the long conflict. Synagogues were attacked and fighting broke out on the streets, prompting Israel’s president to warn of the dangers of civil war.
Worried the hostilities could spiral out of control, the US is sending an envoy, Hady Amr. Truce efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the UN have so far offered no sign of progress.
In 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. Gaza health ministry said 87 people, including 18 children and eight women, have been killed and 530 wounded. A Palestinian rocket had earlier crashed into a building near Israel’s Tel Aviv, injuring five. Seven people have been killed in Israel, the Israeli military said.
Israel has prepared combat troops along the Gaza border, a military spokesman said, a move that would recall incursions in 2014 and 2008-2009. Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida responded with defiance. “Mass up as you wish, from the sea, land and sky. We have prepared for you kinds of deaths that would make you curse yourselves,” he said. Gaza authorities said they were investigating several deaths of people who may have inhaled poisonous gas.
US President Joe Biden hoped the fighting “will be closing down” sooner rather than later. Russian President Vladimir Putin and UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres appealed for an end to the fighting. French President Emmanuel Macron also urged a “definite reset” of negotiations, and British PM Boris Johnson sought “urgent deescalation” of violence.
Netanyahu said Israel will continue strikes against Hamas and other groups.