Israeli jets begin massive retaliatory airstrikes on Gaza killing at least 250
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his forces to strike Gaza and has told Palestinians to leave the area in retaliation for yesterday's shock attacks by Hamas.
Israel declared itself to be at war and launched hundreds of relentless retaliatory strikes on Gaza, killing around 250 Palestinians and injuring over a thousand more. One air raid on the besieged area flattened a tower in the heart of Gaza City as large-scale fighting between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli military continued.
The aggression came hours after Hamas launched a hugely unexpected and unprecedented attack by firing thousands of rockets and sending fighters inside Israel. Fighters broke through highly fortified borders and captured civilians.
People stand outside a mosque destroyed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza Strip (AP)Home to about two million Palestinians, Gaza is a 25-mile-long enclave bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, Israel and Egypt. Since 2007, it has been under the control of the militant group Hamas. Israel and Egypt now tightly control the movement of goods and people in and out in what say is to stop weapons from getting to Hamas.
But Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank say they are suffering because of Israeli actions and restrictions. Israel says it is only acting to protect itself from Palestinian violence. Amnesty calls the controls an "illegal blockade" of "collective punishment" that has plunged people into "dire poverty conditions."
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Smoke rises after Israeli warplanes targeted the Palestine tower (Mahmoud Ajjour/Quds Net News via ZUMA Press/REX/Shutterstock)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip on Saturday and said the army would turn Hamas sites "into rubble." He continued: "We will turn all the places in which Hamas is based … all the places Hamas is hiding in, acting from into rubble." He warned that Palestinians trapped in the besieged area should "leave now" – despite them being unable to do so. Israel struck 426 targets in Gaza, its military said, flattening residential buildings in giant explosions.
Previous conflicts between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers brought widespread destruction in Gaza and days of rocket fire on Israeli towns. The situation is potentially more volatile now, with Israel’s far-right government stung by the security breach and Palestinians in despair over a never-ending occupation in the West Bank and suffocating blockade of Gaza.
In Gaza, much of the population was thrown into darkness on Saturday night as Israel cut off electricity. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel would stop supplying electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza. Before daybreak on Sunday, Hamas fired more rockets from Gaza, hitting a hospital in the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon, said senior hospital official Tal Bergman.
The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, and a series of recent incidents that have brought Israeli-Palestinian tensions to a fever pitch.
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