Netanyahu says Palestinian militants to pay ‘very heavy’ price for rocket attacks

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Netanyahu says Palestinian militants to pay ‘very heavy’ price for rocket attacks

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller
Updated

Gaza/Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Palestinian militants would pay a “very heavy” price after three Israelis died from rocket attacks on Tel Aviv, in the latest round of violence to roil the region.

Israel carried out multiple air strikes in the Palestinian territory of Gaza raising the death toll of Palestinians to 32.

The rockets fired from Gaza reached the outskirts of Jerusalem on Monday during a holiday in Israel commemorating its capture of East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.

Rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip towards Tel Aviv on Tuesday night.

Rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip towards Tel Aviv on Tuesday night. Credit: AP

“We are at the height of a weighty campaign,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks alongside his defence minister and military chief.

“Hamas and Islamic Jihad paid ... and will pay a very heavy price for their belligerence ... their blood is forfeit.”

A 13-storey residential building in Gaza collapsed after it was hit by an Israeli air strike, one of hundreds that Israel said it had carried out against Hamas targets.

Israel missile defence blocks Palestinian rockets.

They were the most intensive aerial exchanges between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in Gaza, and prompted international concern that the situation could spiral out of control.

An energy pipeline between the Israeli cities of Eilat and Ashkelon was hit by a rocket, Israel’s Channel 12 TV said. Video broadcast by Channel 12 showed flames rising from what appeared to be a large fuel container.

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The incoming rocket fire was so relentless that Israel’s Iron Dome rocket-defence system seemed to be overwhelmed.

There appeared no imminent end to the violence.

UN Middle East peace envoy Tor 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.

Into the early hours of Wednesday morning, Gazans reported their homes shaking and the sky lighting up with Israeli attacks, outgoing rockets fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Israeli air defence missiles intercepting them.

Israelis ran for shelters or flattened themselves on pavements in communities more than 70 km up the coast amid sounds of explosions as interceptor missiles streaked into the sky. Israel said hundreds of rockets had been fired by Palestinian militant groups.

In Tel Aviv, air raid sirens were heard around the city. For Israel, the militants’ targeting of Tel Aviv, its commercial capital, posed a new challenge in the confrontation with the Islamist Hamas group, regarded as a terrorist organisation by Israel and the United States.

The violence followed weeks of tension in Jerusalem during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, with clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in and around Al-Aqsa Mosque, on the compound revered by Jews as Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

These escalated in recent days ahead of a – now postponed - court hearing in a case that could end with Palestinian families evicted from East Jerusalem homes claimed by Jewish settlers.

For Israel, the militants’ targeting of Tel Aviv, its commercial capital, posed a new challenge in the confrontation with the Islamist Hamas group, regarded as a terrorist organisation by Israel and the United States.

Jewish nationalist demonstrators looking at a barrage of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip toward central Israel, in the Israeli town of Ramla.

Jewish nationalist demonstrators looking at a barrage of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip toward central Israel, in the Israeli town of Ramla. Credit: AP

The violence followed weeks of tension in Jerusalem during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, with clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in and around Al-Aqsa Mosque, on the compound revered by Jews as Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Hamas – seeking the opportunity to marginalise Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and to present itself as the guardians of Palestinians in Jerusalem – said it was up to Israel to make the first move.

The militant group’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a televised speech that Israel had “ignited fire in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa and the flames extended to Gaza, therefore, it is responsible for the consequences.”

Haniyeh said that Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations had been in contact urging calm but that Hamas’s message to Israel was: “If they want to escalate, the resistance is ready, if they want to stop, the resistance is ready.”

If they want to escalate, the resistance is ready, if they want to stop, the resistance is ready.

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas leader

The White House said on Tuesday that Israel has a legitimate right to defend itself from rocket attacks but applied pressure on Israel over the treatment of Palestinians, saying Jerusalem “must be a place of co-existence.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki opened her daily news briefing with a statement about the situation, saying that President Joe Biden’s primary focus was on de-escalation.

She said the United States condemned rocket attacks by Hamas and other groups, including attacks on Jerusalem, and that Biden’s support for “Israel’s security, for its legitimate right to defend itself and its people, is fundamental and will never waver.”

“Jerusalem, a city of such importance to people of faith around the world, must be a place of co-existence,” Psaki said.

US officials in recent weeks have spoken candidly with Israeli officials about how evictions of Palestinian families and demolition of their homes “work against our common interests in achieving a solution to the conflict,” Psaki said.

Biden has sought to rebalance US policy toward Israel and the Palestinians after his predecessor, Donald Trump, sided with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on all fronts.

A senior administration official said Biden and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently completed an exchange of letters that began when Abbas sent Biden a letter congratulating him on winning the 2020 election. Biden sent a response recently.

“We won’t share details of the letter. This is part of this administration’s ongoing outreach with the Palestinian leadership on a range of issues of mutual interest, including ongoing efforts to de-escalate violence and restore calm,” the official said.

A house is heavily damaged after it was hit by a missile fired from the Gaza Strip.

A house is heavily damaged after it was hit by a missile fired from the Gaza Strip.Credit: AP

Psaki said the United States wants a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a goal that Trump did not aggressively pursue, saying it was the only way to ensure a “just and lasting peace” between them.

“We believe Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measures of freedom, security, dignity and prosperity,” she said.

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The United States was delaying UN Security Council efforts to issue a public statement on escalating tensions because it could be harmful to behind-the-scenes efforts to end the violence, according to diplomats and a source familiar with the US strategy.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said Washington is “actively engaged in diplomacy behind the scenes with all parties to achieve a ceasefire” and was concerned that a council statement might be counterproductive at the moment.

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 Israeli ground incursion into Gaza to stop rocket attacks, in 2014.

More than 2100 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.

Video footage on Tuesday showed three plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the Gaza block as it toppled over. Electricity in the surrounding area went out.

Residents of the 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.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Credit: AP

People in other blocks reported that they received warnings from Israel to evacuate ahead of a possible attack.

In Tel Aviv, air raid sirens and explosions were heard around the city. Pedestrians ran for shelter, and diners streamed out of 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,” but later resumed them.

Video broadcast on Israeli Channel 12 television showed interceptor missiles rising above the runways.

The International Committee of the Red Cross urged all sides to step back, and reminded them of the requirement in international law to try to avoid civilian casualties.

“The recent rockets in Israel and air strikes in Gaza represent a dangerous escalation of the tensions and violence witnessed over the past days in Jerusalem, including its Old City,” Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC regional director for the Middle East, said in a statement.

Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service said a 50-year-old woman was killed when a rocket hit a building in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion, and that two women had been killed in rocket strikes on the southern city of Ashkelon.

But the Israeli military said many of the rockets fired from Gaza had fallen short and wounded Palestinians, and that Israel’s Iron Dome air defences had intercepted the bulk of those that made it across the border.

Violence has also ticked up in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian and injured another on Tuesday after they shot towards Israeli troops near the Palestinian city of Nablus, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

Reuters

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