▶ Watch Video: Fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinians intensifies
Violence between Israel and the Islamic militant group Hamas in Gaza is not letting up. Israel’s air and ground assault on Gaza is continuing with a ferocity unlike anything seen before, Imtiaz Tyab reports from Tel Aviv.
Overnight, several areas of the densely populated Palestinian territory — home to 2 million people — were pounded in strikes, wreaking havoc. An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City on Saturday morning killed at least 10 people, most of them children. That marks the highest number of fatalities in a single attack since the conflict began less than a week ago.
Across Gaza, there’s horror as the death toll surges to nearly 140, including 39 children.
One father clutched the lifeless body of his child, screaming, “What has this baby ever done?”
In Israel, there was another night of incoming Hamas rocket fire. So far, nine Israelis have been killed, including a 5-year-old.
Governments around the world are pushing hard for a ceasefire. Mark Regev, a senior advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says there’s no chance of that.
“We think a premature cessation of hostilities only plays into Hamas’ strategy,” he said.
“We are not ready for a ceasefire that allows Hamas time to regroup, rest and then to attack us again tomorrow or next week,” he said.
In East Jerusalem, where this latest round of violence began, there were intense confrontations last night between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces. In the occupied West Bank there were similar scenes, as hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets against Israel’s provocations in Jerusalem and it’s assault on Gaza.
On Friday alone, 10 Palestinian protesters were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers.
The violence has spread across the region. Across Israel, in mixed Arab and Jewish cities, there have been several nights of horrific communal violence.
With the Israeli-Palestinian peace process virtually non-existent and the violence seeming to spiral out of control, there’s concern this could lead to a new intifada or Palestinian uprising, which could open up a potentially new, dark chapter in the long conflict.
Contributing: The Associated Press
