Benjamin Netanyahu vows to ‘step up’ attacks on Hamas after Gaza rockets kill two Israeli women

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Israel and Hamas fired retaliatory missile strikes on Tuesday and into Wednesday leaving dozens dead, as Donald Trump blamed Joe Biden’s ‘weakness’ on Middle Eastern issues for the renewed conflict between the two sides.

Officials in Gaza said 32 Palestinians – including ten children – have been killed in the latest clashes. The Israeli military claimed at least 16 of the dead were militants, while seven deaths have been attributed to the same family, including three children. Some may have been the result of errant Hamas missiles. 

In Israel, three women have been killed – one in her 60s and another in her 80s during Hamas rocket attacks earlier on Tuesday, and a third victim aged 50 on Tuesday evening when a rocket hit a building in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion.

The renewed confrontation, following weeks of tensions and clashes in the contested Jerusalem, was sparked on Monday evening when Hamas fired a barrage of missiles towards Jerusalem. It continued throughout Tuesday and into Wednesday, with more rockets being fired by the Islamist group into Tel Aviv.

On Tuesday afternoon, former U.S. President Donald Trump posted to his website, saying that America ‘will always strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself’ as he criticised President Joe Biden over the growing crisis. 

Earlier, the White House had said Biden was being briefed on the escalating situation.    

Israel’s Iron Dome defence system continued to struggle with the volume of rockets being fired from Gaza on Tuesday evening, after an Israeli air strike caused a 13-storey residential building to collapse in Gaza City.

And the mayor of the Israeli city of Lod called for army back-up to help secure the area, saying ‘civil war’ was breaking out as residents clashed following the funeral of an Arab man killed yesterday by a Jewish local.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared declared a state of emergency in Lod, and reinforcements were sent to the area after clashes broke out.

Speaking the day before, he ‘deplored’ the deaths of the two women in Israel, adding that the country’s military would ‘further increase both the intensity and the rate’ of its own air strikes against Gaza.

‘Hamas will be hit in ways that it does not expect,’ Netanyahu said, before the announcement of the third woman’s death in Israel. ‘We have eliminated commanders, hit many important targets and we have decided to attack harder and increase the pace of attacks.’ 

The cross-border violence has been fuelled by Israel’s evictions of Muslim communities living in east Jerusalem which led to angry riots breaking out on Temple Mount over the weekend, with hundreds left injured on Monday as riot police shot rubber bullets and fired tear gas at protesters.

Residents of the collapsed residential block and the surrounding area had been warned to evacuate the area around an hour before the air strike, according to witnesses, and there were no reports of casualties two hours after it collapsed.

Shortly after the attack, Hamas – the Islamist group that rules inside Gaza – and the Islamic Jihad group said they would respond by firing rockets at Tel Aviv, which they did.

Air raid sirens and explosions were heard around the city, and the skies were lit up by the streaks of multiple interceptor missiles launched towards the incoming rockets.

Pedestrians ran for shelter, and diners streamed out of Tel Aviv restaurants while others flattened themselves on pavements as the sirens sounded.

The Israel Airports Authority said it had halted take-offs at Tel Aviv airport ‘to allow defence of the nation’s skies’. Video broadcast on Israeli Channel 12 television showed interceptor missiles rising above the runways.

‘We are now carrying out our promise,’ Hamas’s armed wing said. ‘The Qassam Brigades are launching their biggest rocket strike against Tel Aviv and its suburbs, with 130 rockets, in response to the enemy’s targeting of residential towers.’  

The sound of the outgoing rockets could be heard in Gaza. As the rockets rose into the skies, mosques across Gaza blared with chants of ‘God is great,’ ‘victory to Islam’ and ‘resistance.’

One rocket struck a bus in the central city of Holon, just south of Tel Aviv. Medics said three people, including a five-year-old girl, were wounded and the bus went up in flames.

Israel said it had sent 80 jets to bomb Gaza, and dispatched infantry and armour to reinforce the tanks already gathered on the border, evoking memories of the last ground incursion into Gaza to stop rocket attacks, in 2014.

More than 2,100 Gazans were killed in the seven-week war that followed, according to the Gaza health ministry, along with 73 Israelis, and thousands of homes in Gaza were razed.

The barrage of rockets leaving Gaza and airstrikes coming into the territory continued almost non-stop throughout the day, in what appeared to be some of the most intense fighting between Israel and Hamas since their 2014 war.

Rocket fire was so relentless on Tuesday that Israel’s Iron Dome rocket-defence system seemed to be overwhelmed, with over 480 rockets reportedly fired at Israel. Meanwhile, columns of smoke rose from many places in Gaza as the IDF struck more than 130 targets throughout Monday. 

The U.N. Security will hold emergency consultations Wednesday on the escalating violence between Palestinians and Israelis.

The U.N. Mideast envoy, Tor Wennesland, is expected to brief the 15 council members virtually at the closed meeting, which is being called at the request of China, Tunisia and Norway.

China holds the council presidency this month and its U.N. mission confirms plans for the second emergency meeting in three days. It is an indication of growing international concern about the conflict and where it might lead.

The U.N.’s most powerful body has not yet taken any action.

China, Tunisia and Norway proposed a draft statement at Monday’s meeting expressing “grave concern” at escalating tensions and calling on Israel to cease evictions. 

Wennesland tweeted: ‘Stop the fire immediately. We’re escalating towards a full scale war. Leaders on all sides have to take the responsibility of de-escalation.

‘The cost of war in Gaza is devastating & is being paid by ordinary people. UN is working w/ all sides to restore calm. Stop the violence now,’ he wrote. 

Egypt was been trying to broker a cease-fire into Tuesday, but the cycle of violence was gaining momentum. 

Even before the two Israeli deaths, the Israeli military said it was sending troop reinforcements to the Gaza border and the defence minister Benny Gantz ordered the mobilisation of 5,000 reserve soldiers.

But contrary to Egypt’s efforts, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei urged Palestinians to ‘build up power’ on state television, saying ‘Zionists (Israel) only understand the language of force’. Iran and Israel consider one-another arch enemies, with Iran refusing to recognise the existence of Israel as a state since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Iranian state TV on Tuesday quoted Khamenei as saying that it was a duty of every state to take a stand and condemn this ‘evil, criminal, brutal and cruel’ action by Israel.

Khamenei also said Palestinian need to be empowered in order to ‘force’ Israel to accept their rights.

‘They should make themselves powerful, resist and confront so as to force the other party to withdraw from crime and surrender to what’s right and fair,’ Khamenei said. 

Iran backs anti-Israel militant groups across the region, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. 

In the U.S., the White House said on Tuesday that President Biden was being briefed daily on developments in Jerusalem and Gaza, and has directed his team to engage intensively with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials as well as leaders throughout the Middle East.

Press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that Biden’s team is communicating a clear and consistent message in support of de escalation.

‘That is our primary focus,’ she said, adding that Biden supports Israel’s ‘legitimate right to defend itself and its people’ and at the same time condemns ongoing ‘rocket attacks by Hamas and other terrorist groups including against Jerusalem.’ She added that the Biden administration ‘will also continue to support a two state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.’

But on his own website, former President Donald Trump posted a message saying that America ‘America must always stand with Israel and make clear that the Palestinians must end the violence, terror, and rocket attacks, and make clear that the U.S. will always strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself.’

Trump criticised Biden, saying: ‘Because Israel’s adversaries knew that the United States stood strongly with Israel and there would be swift retribution if Israel was attacked. Under Biden, the world is getting more violent and more unstable because Biden’s weakness and lack of support for Israel is leading to new attacks on our allies.’ 

Tuesday also saw a pipeline belonging to an Israeli state-owned energy company hit in a rocket attack from Gaza, an Israeli government official and an energy sector official told Reuters.

Video broadcast by Channel 12 showed flames rising from what appeared to be a large fuel vat near the Israeli Mediterranean city of Ashkelon, south of Tel Aviv.

Operations at a power plant in Ashkelon were not interrupted, Channel 13 TV said.  

In Israel, residents of Ashkelon have been running to shelters as air raid sirens wail. ‘At around 5am, we were woken by sirens. We had to hide in the wardrobe because there is no shelter in the house,’ said Shelly Belayev, whose building was heavily damaged, its facade blackened and an apartment devastated. 

‘There was a very strong explosion, I have never heard a sound like it. I quickly realised the missile fell here,’ she said. ‘I went outside, I was in shock.’

Since the sirens began late Monday, barrages of rockets launched from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave have rained down on the coastal city, located just north of the Gaza Strip.

The deluge continued on Tuesday, with Hamas’ armed wing the Qassam Brigades saying it had fired 137 rockets on Ashkelon and nearby Ashdod within just five minutes during the afternoon. 

Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, announced on Tuesday that two of its commanders were killed during continued Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip. 

Sources within the group said the strikes in central Gaza, also ‘wounded eight people, including a woman and her two children.’

On Tuesday, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claimed it had killed a top Hamas Commander in a statement , saying: ‘We just killed the commander of the Hamas anti-tank missile unit, Iyad Fathi Faik Sharir. He was in charge of carrying out anti-tank missile attacks on Israel. Our aircraft are currently striking additional terror targets’. 

Other high-profile Hamas targets are also said to have been killed. One was identified as Samah Abed al-Mamlouk, who the IDF said was in a hideout along with other operatives. He is said to have been in charge of the Islamic Jihad’s rocket arsenal.

Another – Hassan Abu al-Atta – was also killed. He is thought to have been a deputy commander of Islamic Jihad’s Gaza Brigade. He was killed when the IDF struck an eight-storey building in Gaza’s Rimal neighbourhood. 

The United Nations said it was ‘deeply concerned’ over the escalation of violence in the region, warning Israel that Palestinians must be allowed the freedom to congregate and protest. 

‘We condemn all violence and all incitement to violence and ethnic division and provocations,’ spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva today. 

He added: ‘No force should be used against those exercising their rights peacefully.’ When use of force is necessary, it should comply fully with international human rights standards, he added. 

Colville said the office of UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet was particularly concerned about the impact of the violence on children. ‘Detained children should be released,’ Colville said. ‘Things need to calm down.’ 

In a sign of widening unrest, hundreds of residents of Arab communities across Israel staged overnight demonstrations denouncing the recent actions of Israeli security forces against Palestinians. It was one of the largest protests by Palestinian citizens in Israel in recent years.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars and numerous skirmishes since the militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007. Recent rounds of fighting have usually ended after a few days, often helped by behind-the-scenes mediation by Qatar, Egypt and others.

An Egyptian official confirmed that the country was trying to broker a truce. But the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing sensitive diplomacy, said Israeli actions in Jerusalem had complicated those efforts. A Palestinian security official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the cease-fire efforts. 

Critics say heavy-handed police measures helped stoke nightly unrest, including a decision to temporarily seal off a popular night-time gathering spot where Palestinian residents would meet after evening prayers.

Another flashpoint was the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah where dozens of Palestinians are under treat of eviction by Jewish settlers. 

Over the weekend, confrontations erupted at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in east Jerusalem, which was captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. 

The compound, located in Jerusalem’s Old City, is the third holiest site of Islam and the holiest site of Judaism.

For four successive days, Israel police fired tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets at Palestinians in the compound who hurled stones and chairs.

Hundreds of Palestinians were hurt, requiring treatment at hospitals. Two dozen officers were also injured. At times, police fired stun grenades into the carpeted mosque.

On Monday evening, Hamas began firing rockets from Gaza, setting off air raid sirens as far as Jerusalem, after giving Israel a deadline to withdraw Israeli security forces from the compound. From there on, the escalation was rapid. 

Speaking of the Israeli response to Hamas’s rocket attacks, army spokesman Conricus said on Monday evening: ‘We have started, and I repeat started, to attack military targets in Gaza.

‘We have made preparations for various scenarios, including high intensity ones… Hamas will get the message.’

Amnesty International said Israel is using ‘abusive and wanton force against largely peaceful Palestinian protesters.’

The London-based human rights group described some of the measures as ‘disproportionate and unlawful’, accusing security forces of ‘unprovoked attacks on peaceful demonstrators’. 

Amnesty said Israel has used excessive force over multiple weeks of east Jerusalem protests.

In one incident, it said Israeli forces last week broke up a peaceful circle of Palestinians chanting against an attempt by Israelis to evict them from their homes in the city’s Sheikh Jarrah district.

Forces on horseback sprinted toward the crowd, trampling a man who was trying to run away, Amnesty said.

The rights group called on the international community ‘to hold Israel accountable for its systemic violations’.

The Israeli police did not respond to specific allegations, but told AFP in an email: ‘We will not allow disturbance of order while harming the fabric of life, inciting to harm police forces and violence against police officers and civilians.’

Police commissioner Kobi Shabtai told Israeli N12 TV on Monday that in Jerusalem in recent days ‘we showed too much restraint’.

‘We are at the stage of taking off the gloves,’ he said. 

The group Save the Children, also based in London, said it was ‘horrified’ by the Israeli air strikes and demanded a stop to ‘the indiscriminate targeting and killing of civilians’.

Israeli army spokesman Conricus said Israel ‘was doing everything possible to limit collateral damage’ and he said there was no confirmation Israeli strikes had impacted Gaza civilians.

Diplomatic sources told AFP that Egypt and Qatar, who have mediated past Israeli-Hamas conflicts, were attempting to calm tensions 

In perhaps the most serious incident of clashes today, CCTV captured the moment crowds of Palestinians pelted a car driving near Jerusalem’s Old City with rocks before the Israeli driver accelerated on to the pavement – sending people flying. 

People continued to pelt the driver after the car came to a halt, suspended on a nearby wall, before a gun-waving police officer arrived. The officer helped the man from the car, before he was again attacked by a pedestrian.

Police then cancelled a right-wing Israeli march that was due to pass through the Old City and its Muslim Quarter in an effort to calm tensions.

The fighting has drawn calls for de-escalation from the international community and sharp rebukes from across the Muslim world.

In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration, including President Joe Biden himself, was monitoring the violence.

‘We have serious concerns about the situation, including violent confrontations that we’ve seen over the last few days,’ she told reporters. The U.S. Embassy in Israel said the rocket fire was ‘unacceptable.’

The Israeli military said well over 50 rockets were fired into Israel throughout the evening, most of them aimed at southern Israeli towns near the border.

Lieutenant Colonel Conricus said six rockets were aimed at Jerusalem, some 60 miles (100 kilometers) away. It was believed to be the first rocket attack on the city since a 2014 war. 

Shortly after the sirens sounded, explosions could be heard in Jerusalem. One rocket fell on the western outskirts of the city, lightly damaging a home and causing a brush fire. The Israeli army said one rocket was intercepted and the others fell in open areas. 

Israel then responded with airstrikes on Hamas targets throughout Gaza. 

Seven members of a family, including three children, were killed in a blast in the northern town of Beit Hanoun. It was not immediately clear if the blast was caused by an airstrike or errant rocket.

Ashraf al-Masri, a member of the family, said there was an explosion outside the house.

‘We don’t know where it came from,’ he said. ‘We are trying to get the children for burial but the situation is difficult in Beit Hanoun and we are afraid to leave our houses.’

Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, said the attack on Jerusalem was a response to what he called Israeli ‘crimes and aggression’ in the city. ‘This is a message the enemy has to understand well,’ he said.

He threatened more attacks if Israeli forces re-enter the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque compound or carry out planned evictions of Palestinian families from an east Jerusalem neighbourhood.

Fears of further chaos in the Old City had eased somewhat today when Israeli organisers cancelled a march to celebrate the Jewish state’s 1967 capture of east Jerusalem that was due to pass through the Old City.

But then came the Hamas warning, followed shortly after by the rockets.

‘An alarm has just been sounded in Jerusalem. Police forces have begun evacuating hundreds of people’ gathered at the Wailing Wall to safer locations, police said in a brief statement.

Hamas has fired several rockets towards Israel in recent days, some intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system, while militants in Gaza have deployed incendiary balloons that have sparked dozens of fires in Israeli territory.

Israel’s army earlier announced widespread road closures in communities near the Gaza border, following a ‘situational assessment’, and two municipalities near Gaza, Ashkelon and Kyriat Malachi, confirmed that they had opened their bomb shelters.

Monday’s clashes mark the fourth straight day of fighting between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in Jerusalem, the most serious period of violence the city has seen since 2017. 

Tensions between the two sides had been simmering since mid-April because Israeli forces had restricted access to the Al Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.

But the clashes suddenly escalated on Friday with violence in and around the mosque, which drew more people on to the streets. Protesters have also been angered by a long-running court battle between Jewish settlers and Palestinian homeowners in east Jerusalem, where the Old City is located.  

A court that was due to rule on the issue today has postponed the date.    

The leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, Bezalel Smotrich, announced a visit Monday to the tense Sheikh Jarrah district which is at the centre of property disputes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday defended Israel’s response to the protests and rioting.

‘We will uphold law and order – vigorously and responsibly,’ Netanyahu said while vowing to ‘guard freedom of worship for all faiths’. 

Monday’s clashes broke out after Palestinians gathered around the Al-Aqsa Mosque in anticipation of the arrival of the Jerusalem Day march, which is due to end at the nearby Dome of the Rock.

Israeli security forces said demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the mosque, and officers were sent in to clear them out. Rocks were thrown at police, who opened fire with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Witnesses said some of the tear gas grenades landed inside the mosque. The BBC also reported confrontations in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, and near the West Bank city of Ramallah. 

The scenes around Al-Aqsa Mosque mirror those which took place on Friday and have seen Israeli forces criticised for heavy-handed tactics. 

All six Arab nations that have diplomatic ties with Israel – Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – have condemned the Jewish state.

In Jordan, the custodian of Jerusalem’s holy Islamic and Christian sites, King Abdullah II condemned ‘Israeli violations and escalatory practices at the blessed Al-Aqsa mosque’.

Jordan and Egypt both summoned Israeli envoys on Sunday to lodge protests. 

The Middle East quartet of envoys from the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations – and Pope Francis – have all called for calm.

‘Israeli authorities must exercise maximum restraint and respect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly,’ UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.  

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said that over two days, 29 Palestinian children had been injured in east Jerusalem, including a one-year-old.

The unrest of past weeks in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as their future capital, has multiple causes.

Much of the recent violence stems from a long-running legal effort by Jewish settler groups to evict several Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah.

A lower court ruling earlier this year backing the settlers’ decades-old claim to the plots infuriated Palestinians.

A Supreme Court hearing on a Palestinian appeal had been set for Monday, but the justice ministry said Sunday that in light of ‘all the circumstances’ it would delay the hearing.

Old City shopkeeper Mohammad said Israeli police told him he must close Monday afternoon, when Israeli Jews plan to march with Israeli flags to mark Jerusalem’s ‘reunification’.

Israel annexed east Jerusalem following the 1967 takeover, a move not recognised by most of the international community.

The unrest has spread across the Palestinian territories, including demonstrations and clashes in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has expressed ‘full support for our heroes in Al-Aqsa’.

Hamas Islamists who control the Gaza Strip have also voiced support for the Palestinian protesters and warned Israel of retribution if evictions proceed in Sheikh Jarrah.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh called Sunday for a united Arab and Muslim response against Israel’s ‘provocative desecration of the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque’.

Four rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel on Sunday, the army said, as well as incendiary balloons that started 39 fires on Israeli territory, according to the fire services.

The Israeli military said late Sunday that ‘tanks just struck Hamas terror targets in Gaza’, without giving further details.