Israel-Gaza: Hamas chiefs targeted as truce efforts stallon May 19, 2021 at 7:29 am

Israel says it has targeted the homes of Hamas commanders as deadly fighting with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip enters a 10th day.

Israel said it had tried to kill Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif “several times”. Overnight, two militants died in a strike on an apartment.

Fresh barrages of rockets were also fired into Israel, with Hamas saying it had targeted an air base in the south.

Ceasefire moves continue behind the scenes but have made little headway.

France, in co-ordination with Egypt and Jordan, filed a resolution with the UN Security Council calling for an end to the violence, but it was only a draft.

The US, a long-standing ally of Israel, has been blocking attempts to issue a joint statement, saying it would not help with de-escalation, although it has called for a ceasefire.

Sources in the Israeli defence establishment told the BBC on Wednesday the Israeli military operation was “continuing at full-throttle. There is still no ceasefire on the table”.

The fighting began after weeks of rising Israeli-Palestinian tension in occupied East Jerusalem that culminated in clashes at a holy site revered by both Muslims and Jews. Hamas, which controls Gaza, began firing rockets after warning Israel to withdraw from the site, triggering retaliatory air strikes.

At least 219 people, including almost 100 women and children, have been killed in Gaza so far, according to its health ministry. Israel has said at least 150 militants are among those killed in Gaza. Hamas does not give casualty figures for fighters.

In Israel 12 people, including two children, have been killed, its medical service says. Israel says some 3,750 rockets have been fired towards its territory by militants in Gaza.

The rocket barrages and Israeli air strikes continued overnight.

The Israeli military said its fighter jets had attacked military infrastructure and the homes of Hamas commanders in Gaza.

The BBC’s Rushdi Abualouf in Gaza says two Palestinian militants were killed in an apartment in a building in central Gaza City as Israeli warplanes carried out more than 70 strikes.

About 50 strikes targeted the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, with attacks on militant groups’ training facilities, a Hamas-run security compound, and roads and farms, our correspondent says.

Gaza City mother of seven Randa Abu Sultan, 45, told AFP news agency: “My four-year-old son tells me he’s scared that if he falls asleep, he’ll wake up to find us dead.”

The Israeli air strikes continued in the morning.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Brig Gen Hidai Zilberman said: “Throughout the operation we have tried to assassinate Mohammed Deif. We’ve tried to kill him several times.”

Mohammed Deif is the head of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and has survived repeated attempts on his life, including in the last major conflict in 2014. He tends to stay in the background and his whereabouts remain unknown.

In Israel, sirens sounded overnight in parts of the south, including for the cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod.

Hamas said it had launched rockets at the Palmachim air base for a second time. Israel said no military bases had been hit.

Sirens sounded too in central Israel, including in the towns of Rehovot, Nes Ziona and Palmachim.

Of the 3,750 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip since the fighting began, 550 have fallen short in Gaza, according to the IDF. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system has intercepted about 90% of the rockets that have crossed into Israeli territory, it says.

The IDF estimated that at the start of the conflict, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two main groups in Gaza, had an arsenal of about 12,000 rockets or mortars.

Mr Netanyahu said the Israeli operation had “set Hamas back by many years”, dealing it “unexpected blows”.

There has also been unrest within Israel and in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, where Palestinians took part in a general strike on Tuesday. There were clashes in several locations.

In New York on Tuesday, the latest meeting of the UN Security Council again failed to reach agreement.

France said its draft resolution had been compiled during a video conference with Egypt’s leader, Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

The Palestinian representative at the UN, Riyad Mansour, called the Security Council’s failure to express a unified position “shameful”.

The US, the EU and other powers have called for an end to the conflict.

The BBC’s Yolande Knell in Jerusalem says reports began circulating that a truce – brokered by Egypt – could come into force within days. However, these were quickly denied.

A senior Israeli official said there were no agreements or commitments. A Hamas leader said that efforts by mediators were “serious and continuous” but that Palestinian demands had to be met.

Israel’s prime minister said on Tuesday its military operation in Gaza would continue “as long as needed” but also told authorities in the south that it could end within “several days”.

UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said the fighting had caused “immense suffering” and “must stop”.

“I call on all parties to the hostilities to agree to a humanitarian pause to allow for emergency humanitarian relief distribution,” he said.

The fighting between Israel and Hamas was triggered by days of escalating clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at a holy hilltop compound in East Jerusalem.

The site is revered by both Muslims, who call it the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), and Jews, for whom it is known as the Temple Mount. Hamas demanded Israel remove police from there and the nearby predominantly Arab district of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families face eviction by Jewish settlers. Hamas launched rockets when its ultimatum went unheeded.

Palestinian anger had already been stoked by weeks of rising tension in East Jerusalem, inflamed by a series of confrontations with police since mid-April.

It was further fuelled by Israel’s annual celebration of its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, known as Jerusalem Day.

The fate of the city, with its deep religious and national significance to both sides, lies at the heart of the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict. Israel in effect annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and considers the entire city its capital, though this is not recognised by the vast majority of other countries.

Palestinians claim the eastern half of Jerusalem as the capital of a hoped-for state of their own.