Two Palestinian teens were killed by Israeli airstrikes, and four Israelis were wounded by rocket fire on Saturday in a continual escalation of the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militias in Gaza.
The Israeli army bombed more than 40 Hamas targets in the past 24 hours, and almost 100 rockets were launched at southern Israeli communities where some 200,000 residents have sought safety in air-raid shelters.
Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist militia that has ruled the Gaza Strip for more than 10 years, operates under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade.
Blasts and alarms warning of incoming rockets and missiles sounded throughout the day and night in Gaza. On the Israeli side of the border, the Israeli army said air-raid sirens sounded 160 times in the past 24 hours.
Brig. Gen. Tzvika Haimovic of the Israeli air forces said that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad had launched 100 mortars and rockets and that Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted 20 incoming projectiles. As evening fell, police bomb-disposal units were disarming rockets that had fallen at four sites in the western Negev desert city of Sderot.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would intensity its response as necessary.
“If Hamas doesn’t understand the message today, it will understand it tomorrow,” he said.
Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, accused Israel of starting the aggression and said the Palestinians were merely responding to attacks.
“The occupation must stop this aggression first to reach a truce with the Palestinian factions in Gaza,” he said. READ MORE
