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12-05-2021
GAZA CITY/ JERUSALEM: A night of heavy bombardment on the Gaza Strip has continued into Wednesday morning as Israeli forces launched intensive raids on various locations across the besieged coastal territory.
Local sources said Israeli fighter jets bombed sites belonging to Palestinian armed groups, in addition to security and police buildings. In Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, a pregnant woman, Reema Telbani and her child were killed by an Israeli attack on their home.
Gaza’s ministry of health said the overall death toll since the latest offensive began stood at 53, including 14 children. More than 300 others have been wounded.
Six Israelis have also been killed. The Israeli army said that about 1,500 rockets have been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.
Netanyahu threatens to use ‘iron fist if needed’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will use “an iron fist if needed” to stop protests by its Palestinian citizens.
“We are continuing our efforts to stop the anarchy and restore governance to the cities of Israel, with an iron fist if needed, with all forces needed and all authorities required,” he said, speaking in Acre along Israel’s northern coastline.
Dozens of Palestinians were arrested at protests in other towns and cities within the Green Line, the generally recognized boundary between Israel and the West Bank.
In the central city of Lod, also known as Lydd, a state of emergency was declared for the first time in 66 years. Israeli authorities ordered the redeployment of paramilitary border police companies from the occupied West Bank as reinforcements.
Thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel protested in the city after the funeral of Moussa Hassouneh, who was shot dead by a Jewish settler on Monday.
The crowd fought with police and set a synagogue and some 30 vehicles on fire, Israeli media reported.
The health ministry in the Gaza Strip said the number of Palestinians killed has now risen to 53, including 14 children and three women while at least 1000 others have been wounded.
We will not back down: Islamic Jihad
The armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group said in a statement it has fired more than 100 rockets early on Wednesday morning towards Tel Aviv and the surrounding areas.
A spokesman for the al-Quds Brigades said three of its commanders were killed by Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip on Monday, and identified them as Sameh Fahim al-Mamluk, Kamal Taiseer Qureiqe, and Mohammed Yahya Abu Atah.
“We will continue to respond to Israel’s aggressions,” the spokesman said. “We will not back down on our resistance no matter what the price is.”
From New York and London to Karachi and Rabbat, thousands of people have gathered in big cities across the world to protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Demonstrators on Tuesday also rallied to denounce the ongoing crackdown at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, as well as Israeli plans to forcefully expel Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem.
Some protesters carried banners reading “Free Palestine”, “Israel is a terrorist state”, and “Occupation No More”.
The Israeli raids on Gaza come after weeks of mounting tension over the looming forced expulsion of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem that Jewish settlers have been trying to expel them from for decades.
The situation escalated when Israeli police stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, the third-holiest site in Islam and wounded hundreds of Palestinian worshippers during several days of violence. Protests broke out across the occupied territories and inside Israel.
