An Israeli soldier walks on top of a tank near Nahal Oz on the Israeli Gaza border Violence in and around Gaza entered its fourth day, with 22 rockets hitting southern Israel a day after a Grad rocket killed an Israeli man and injured 18 in the southern desert city of Beersheba, which is home to 194,000 people.
The Israeli military says 14 rockets were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip overnight, despite the announcement of a cease-fire on Sunday evening by Hamas officials. Israel retaliated with an airstrike.
Palestinians militants in the Gaza Strip have fired more rockets and mortars on southern Israel despite a cease-fire agreement. Israel’s military said Monday that 14 projectiles were launched at Israel overnight. It says Israel retaliated with an airstrike before midnight Sunday. A Hamas official said Sunday a truce would go into effect that evening to end three days of clashes between Israel and Gaza militants.
An Israeli drone fired a missile at a number of Palestinians in an area northwest of Gaza, with no injuries reported, they said. Witnesses said that an Israeli military plane targeted a car, which was parked near the American school in east of the town of Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza city. The car was empty; no one was injured. Witnesses also said that an Israeli warplane fired a missile targeting an empty agricultural land in Rafah, a city south of Gaza. No injuries reported.
A medical source confirmed on Sunday that the 15 Palestinians, who were killed during the Israeli ongoing aggression and air strikes on Gaza, reached the hospital all torn apart and charred, raising questions over the quality of weapons used by the Israeli forces against civilians.
The source said that a number of the injured Palestinians had their lower or upper limbs cut off; while the others were burnt in different parts of their bodies, similar to what happened in the 2008-2009 war on Gaza, where hundreds of civilians suffered from permanent disabilities.
He called on the international community and the European Union to move in accordance with the humanitarian and international laws and the universal declaration of human rights; in which it affirm the need to protect civilians during military operations.
The agreement was reached "on condition that Israel halts its attacks", a Hamas official told the AFP news agency late on Sunday night. Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli government was not commenting on reports of a truce. The ceasefire calls came hours after the Arab League condemned the Israeli raids on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during an "urgent meeting" in Cairo. The bloc called on the international community "to put pressure on Israeli occupation authorities ... to halt this brutal assault". The meeting came a day after Israeli ministers held their own emergency session on Saturday night to discuss the violence, after an Israeli man was killed that evening by a rocket strike in the southern city of Beersheva.
Shortly after announcement of the informal accord, two rockets from Gaza fell near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, Israeli officials said. The explosions were followed by fresh Israeli air strikes against Jabaliya in northern Gaza and Khan Younis refugee camp in the strip's south, Gaza residents said.
The first hit Beit Lahiya, seriously wounding a 12-year-old boy, while a second struck a Hamas security training ground north of Gaza City, injuring seven people, an emergency services spokesman said.
Two more raids in central and southern Gaza did not cause any casualties or damage in what were the first strikes since Saturday afternoon. Israeli warplanes targeted an agricultural area in al-Nuseirat, a refugee camp south of Gaza city, while Israeli artillery fired a shell to the southeast of Gaza city. No injuries were reported in either locations.
Israeli police Sunday announced a state of alert throughout Jerusalem under the pretext of 'receiving bomb threats’, according to local residents.
Israeli Police and soldiers intensified their presence in centre Jerusalem and the surrounding areas of the old town; in its streets, crossings and permanent checkpoints stationed at Jerusalem's main entrances, in addition to setting up road blocks and barricades i streets.
In a related matter, Israeli police closed the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, setting up military roadblocks and barricades and intensifying its presence near settlement blocs in Silwan.
Witness said that Palestinian residents in Jerusalem are in a state of tension, cautious and suspense.
Israeli police Sunday prevented Muslim worshippers from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque, inside the Old City of Jerusalem, to perform ‘Al-A’sser' prayer, the Muslims afternoon daily prayer, according to local residents.
They said that Israeli police stationed at two of Al-Aqsa Mosque’s Gates told the women and the elderly to enter from another gate without giving any explanations.
The police allowed the entrance of a limited number of Palestinians after al-A’sser Prayer was over, checking the identity cards of young Palestinians while they were leaving the mosque, which is an Israeli measure to find specific names they have on their list.
Fatah Central Committee Member, Azzam Al-Ahmad, Sunday said that Palestinian factions’ meeting, which was set on Tuesday, to discuss the fourth term of the reconciliation agreement was postponed.
He told WAFA that the meeting, which was to be held parallelly in Ramallah and Gaza, was postponed till a further notice due to the Israeli aggression on Gaza.
He also condemned the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
The Arab League Sunday, during an urgent meeting held at the request of Palestine, condemned the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian borders and held Israel fully responsible for this crime.
It expressed deep resentment of the Israeli attacks on Gaza and Egyptian borders and supported the Egyptian stance to face the consequences of the attack.
The Arab League affirmed its support of the Palestinian society and promised to fulfill its financial obligations to the PA.
The board also expressed its commitment to support the Palestinian stance to seek United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state in September and held Israel responsible for the safety of Palestinians in Gaza.
It called on the international community to support the Palestinians and end the blockade on the Strip, including the reopening of all the crossing.
The meeting was announced yesterday for the Arab League’s permanent representatives at the request of Palestine to discuss the deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.
The Arab League called on its permanent representatives to offer immediate help for the Palestinians living in the Gaza strip to end their sufferings caused by the Israeli aggression.
But a senior Israeli official criticised the statement, questioning why the Arab League had not issued a similar statement condemning Thursday’s bloody attacks.
“The Arab League, which in principle advocates peace and opposes terrorism, unfortunately, has refused to condemn a deadly terrorist attack against innocent Israeli civilians coming from the territory of a member of the League,” he said speaking on condition of anonymity.
In Ramallah, Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh condemned on Sunday the Israeli escalations against the Palestinians, including the air strikes on the Gaza Strip and the mass arrests and raids in the West Bank, especially in East Jerusalem.
In a press release, Abu Rudeineh described the mass arrests of 120 Palestinians in the West Bank, the ongoing air strikes in Gaza and the excessive harassment campaign against Muslim worshippers in East Jerusalem as 'the tip of the iceberg' of the Israeli government's collective punishment policy against the Palestinians.
'It [the collective punishment policy] will not intimidate us and will not deter us from continuing our path and our just struggle to restore our nation's inalienable and legitimate rights,' he added.
Abu Rudeineh called on the international community and its institutions, especially the United Nations, to immediately intervene to stop the Israeli open massacre against innocents in Gaza and the crimes in the West Bank.
Jordan also weighed in, condemning Israel for its “military escalation” as well as for the shooting of the Egyptian policemen, urging a halt to its Gaza raids in order to avoid regional instability.
Tensions have soared since Thursday when militants staged a series of bloody shooting attacks in the Negev desert, killing eight Israelis and prompting a wave of bloody tit-for-tat exchanges with militants in Gaza whom Israel said were behind the attack.
It also sparked a diplomatic crisis with Egypt after Cairo said five policemen were killed by Israeli fire as soldiers pursued gunmen involved in the Negev ambushes.
Israeli officials were yesterday pressing efforts to resolve the crisis a day after Defence Minister Ehud Barak expressed “regret” over the incident in a move dismissed by Cairo as insufficient.
During a visit to the families of the soldier and the police officer who were killed on Thursday, Israel’s President Shimon Peres sent condolences to the families of the Egyptian policemen.
“I regret that Egyptian soldiers fell and am certain that no Israeli would want to see Egyptian soldiers killed,” he said. “I convey my condolences to the Egyptian people and the soldiers’ families.”
The Office of the Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (PMO) Sunday rejected as outright falsification a Yedioth Ahronoth news report, which appeared on the newspaper’s website earlier today, regarding the existence of any US threats to the Palestinian Authority (PA) during a telephone conversation between Fayyad and the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, last Thursday evening.
The PMO stressed that the content of the telephone conversation between the Prime Minister and the Secretary, as was stated clearly in an official press release right after the call, focused on the current financial crisis faced by the PA and the need for international donors to fulfill their earlier assistance pledges to the PA in order for it to overcome this crisis.
The latest round of violence has so far killed 15 Palestinians, including seven Popular Resistance Committees militants and two from Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, and injured 48, half of them women and children, Gaza medics said.
Over the same period, militants have fired more than 100 rockets and mortars at Israeli towns and cities in the south, killing one and injuring dozens more, one critically, medics in Israel said.
On Saturday night, rockets ploughed into Beersheba, killing one and injuring 18, but so far, there has been no large-scale Israeli response, with press reports speculating Israel was looking to contain the situation.
“No-one wants an Operation Cast Lead 2,” a senior diplomatic official told Haaretz, referring to Israel’s devastating 22-day operation in Gaza over New Year 2009 which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and 11 Israelis.
That operation, launched to stamp out rocket fire on southern Israel, ended in January 2009 with a truce which has largely held.
This time round, most of the rockets have been fired by the PRC, although four were claimed by Ezzedine Al Qassam, the armed wing of Hamas, in what was the first time they had fired on Israel since a truce agreement of April 10.
Egyptian officials were yesterday locked in talks with several of Gaza’s militant factions in a bid to shore up the fragile agreement, a senior Islamic Jihad leader said from Cairo.
Although Gaza’s Hamas leaders were not there in person, a senior official from the Islamist movement confirmed they were in touch with the Egyptians by phone.