Zionist forces pound Gaza as US envoy arrives for talks
Zionist fighter jets pounded the Gaza Strip overnight, killing 10 members of a single family, medics said Saturday, after a day of deadly violence rocked the West Bank and a US envoy arrived for talks. US Secretary for Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was due to meet Zionist leaders later in Jerusalem Saturday before heading to […]
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Zionist fighter jets pounded the Gaza Strip overnight, killing 10 members of a single family, medics said Saturday, after a day of deadly violence rocked the West Bank and a US envoy arrived for talks.
US Secretary for Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr was due to meet Zionist leaders later in Jerusalem Saturday before heading to the occupied West Bank for talks with Palestinian officials.
He wants to encourage a “sustainable calm”, State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter said. Washington has been criticized for not doing more to end the intensifying violence after it blocked a UN Security Council meeting scheduled for Friday. Eleven Palestinians were killed in clashes in the occupied West Bank on Friday and there were fears of worse violence Saturday as Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, the “catastrophe” of the Jewish state’s creation in 1948, which turned hundreds of thousands into refugees. Despite intensifying diplomatic efforts to ease five days of fighting between Zionists and Palestinians in Gaza, occupation air force struck several sites in the coastal enclave overnight, while rockets again tore towards Zionist state..
Ten members of a single family—eight children and two women—were killed when a three-storey building in Shati refugee camp collapsed following an occupation strike. The overall death toll in Gaza since Monday now tops 130, more than 30 of them children. Around 950 people have been wounded.
Egypt opened its Rafah border crossing with Gaza on Saturday to allow in 10 ambulances carrying seriously injured Palestinians for treatment in Egyptian hospitals, medical officials said. The Zionist entity, which is also trying to contain an outbreak of internal Jewish-Arab violence, is facing its bloodiest conflict with Palestinian fighters in Gaza since a 2014 war.
Its bombardment began on Monday after Hamas fired rockets towards Jerusalem in response to a bloody police action at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in annexed east Jerusalem. More than 2,000 rockets have been fired at the Jewish state since then, killing nine people, including a child and a soldier. More than 560 people have been wounded.
Between 7 pm Friday and 7 am Saturday, some 200 rockets were fired at southern Zionist state, over 100 of which were intercepted by air defenses, the Zionist military claimed. The occupation forces hit nearly 800 targets, including a massive assault Friday on a Hamas tunnel network dug under civilian areas.
Tower blocks and other multi-storey buildings have been leveled. Some 10,000 Palestinians have fled homes near the border for fear of a ground offensive, the United Nations said.
“They are sheltering in schools, mosques and other places during a global COVID-19 pandemic with limited access to water, food, hygiene and health services, said UN humanitarian coordinator for the occupied territories, Lynn Hastings. “All the children are afraid and we are afraid for the children,” said Kamal al-Haddad, who fled with his family to a UN-supported school in Gaza City.
West Bank unrest
The West Bank saw fierce clashes on Friday, with the Palestinian health ministry saying 11 people were killed by Zionist fire.
A Palestinian security source said the fighting was the “most intense” since the second intifada, or uprising, that began in 2000. Violence on Fridays in the West Bank has become a routine part of the decades-old conflict, but the latest unrest was fuelled by developments in Jerusalem and Gaza.
“It would be shameful to remain quiet with what’s going on in Gaza,” said Oday Hassan, 21, who was protesting in the West Bank town of Al-Birah. In annexed east Jerusalem, overnight clashes hit Palestinian neighborhoods across the city. In Shuafat, masked Palestinian protesters threw stones and petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas.
Communal violence
Within Zionist entity, an unprecedented wave of mob violence has seen Arabs and Jews savagely beat each other, with synagogues set alight. More than 750 people have been arrested this week, police said In one of the most shocking episodes, a far-right Jewish mob beat a man they considered an Arab in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, leaving him with serious injuries.
Dozens of Arabs were arrested in mixed Jewish-Arab towns overnight. In Jaffa, an Arab child was seriously wounded after a firebomb was thrown into his home, police said.
In the north, where the Jewish state remains technically at war with neighboring Lebanon and Syria, tensions were also rising. The UN said the Security Council would meet on Sunday to address the violence. – Agencies
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