RAZED TO THE GROUND
Hamas threatens to turn Israel ‘into hell’ as bombing blitz ‘kills 9 kids’ after Jerusalem mosque clashes
HAMAS has threatened to turn Israel “into hell” after it said an air strike on Gaza killed nine children.
Israel's military said it carried out air strikes in retaliation for rocket attacks from the coastal strip, which came in the wake of clashes at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
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More than 300 rockets have been fired by Palestinian militants towards Israel since Monday, said Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said.
Israel has responded with 130 strikes carried out by fighter jets and attack helicopters on military targets in the enclave, killing 15 commanders from Hama, he said.
Palestinians reporting loud explosions close to Gaza City and across the coastal strip.
The Israeli strikes targeted the home of a Hamas commander Mohammed Fayyad, who was killed, and also cross-border tunnels.
In retaliation Hamas launched another round of rocket attacks on the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
The terror group said it would “turn Ashkelon into hell” if Israel targeted civilians in Gaza.
It comes as:
- Clashes erupted on Friday as Muslims packed Al-Aqsa Mosque
- Some 700 Palestinians were injured in clashes with police
- Israel said Palestinian groups fired 300 rockets across the border
- There was an upsurge in violence as Israel celebrated "Jerusalem Day"
- Benjamin Netanyahu say Palestinians will pay a 'heavy price'
The Israeli strikes came after Hames militants crossed a "red line" by firing on the Jerusalem area for the first time since 2014.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu warned that: “Israel will respond with great force.
“We won’t tolerate harm to our territory, capital, citizens, or soldiers. Whoever attacks us will pay a heavy price.”
Palestinian officials said that in addition to the dead, at least 107 people have also been wounded in the air strikes.
Funerals have started taking place in the Gaza strip, including that of an 11-year-old boy.
Israel's military disputed the Palestinian account of the deaths, saying its attacks only killed 15 fighters from Hamas.
Shortly before midnight local time, Israel's military said Palestinian militants had fired rockets into Israel, of which dozens were intercepted by its missile defence systems.
Monday began with early-morning confrontations at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the heart of Jerusalem's walled Old City on the compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary - the most sensitive site in the conflict.
What triggered the violence?
Clashes erupted on Friday as Muslims packed the Al-Aqsa mosque to pray during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Violence had been building in the Holy City and occupied West Bank for the previous week.
Palestinians hurled stones, bottles and fireworks at Israeli police who fire rubber bullets and stun grenades. The site is sacred to Jews as the location of two biblical-era temples.
More than 220 people, mostly Palestinians, were wounded.
On Saturday, prayers at the mosque compound are held peacefully but violence flares elsewhere in east Jerusalem.
Some 121 Palestinians are wounded overnight, many hit by rubber bullets and stun grenades, the Palestinian Red Crescent says.
Israeli police say 17 of its officers are wounded.
Much of the recent unrest stems from the long-running legal effort by Jewish settler groups to evict several Palestinian families from their homes in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
A lower court ruling earlier this year backing the settlers' decades-old claim infuriated Palestinians.
A Supreme Court hearing on a Palestinian appeal had been set for Monday and risked inflaming tensions further.
On Sunday, the justice ministry delays the hearing in light of "the circumstances".
Scuffles between Palestinians and Israeli police in east Jerusalem continue overnight into Sunday.
In the evening, Israeli police again face off against mostly young Palestinians at several locations in east Jerusalem.
Some 331 Palestinians are wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, in renewed clashes between Palestinians and police at the mosque on Monday ahead of a planned march to commemorate Israel's capture of Jerusalem in 1967.
Clashes around the mosque on Monday saw at least 700 Palestinians injured with 500 being taken to hospital.
Israeli police fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas in the compound.
One officer was seriously wounded while 20 other were also hurt, Israeli officials said.
The upsurge in violence came as Israel celebrated "Jerusalem Day", marking its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
In an effort to defuse tensions, cops changed the route of a traditional Jerusalem Day march, in which thousands of Israeli flag-waving Jewish youth were due to walk through the Old City near Damascus Gate, a flashpoint in recent weeks.
But although the trouble had died down by mid-morning, there were other focal points of tension.
They included the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem where several Palestinian families face eviction from homes claimed by Jewish settlers in a long-running legal case.
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Demanding that Israel remove its police from Al-Aqsa and Sheikh Jarrah, Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, set a 6pm deadline for the forces to be withdrawn.
Even as the marchers were diverted toward Jaffa Gate, sirens sounded alerting Israelis to incoming rockets from Gaza, forcing the marchers and other Israelis to flee for cover in Jerusalem, nearby towns and in Israeli communities near Gaza.
Israel views all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern part that it annexed after the 1967 war in a move that has not won international recognition.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem for the capital of a state they seek in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Tension had been building for weeks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, amid clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters prompting concern that events could spiral out of control.
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Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility for the rocket fire on Jerusalem.
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said it had launched "a rocket strike against the enemy in the occupied Jerusalem in response to their crimes and aggression against the holy city and its aggression against our people in Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Aqsa mosque."
In response, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said: "The terrorist organisations crossed a red line on Jerusalem Day and attacked us, on the outskirts of Jerusalem."
He added: "Israel will respond very forcefully. We will not tolerate attacks on our territory, our capital, our citizens and our soldiers. Whoever strikes us will pay a heavy price."
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus said that at least six of the rockets fired from Gaza were launched towards Jerusalem's outskirts, where a house was hit. No casualties were reported.
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"We have started to attack Hamas military targets," Conricus said to reporters, putting no timeframe on any Israeli offensive. "Hamas will pay a heavy price", he added.
He said the military was looking into reports that nine children had been killed by the Israeli air strikes.
"We had multiple events of rockets fired by Gaza terrorists falling short. This might be the same," Conricus said.
Along the fortified Gaza-Israeli border, a Palestinian anti-tank missile fired from the tiny coastal territory struck a civilian vehicle, injuring one Israeli, he said.
After learning of the deaths in Gaza, President Abbas decided to cancel celebrations of the upcoming Eid El-Fitr that marks the end of Ramadan, and limit them to religious rituals only, according to a statement.
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The report said he also decided to lower flags to half-mast to mourn those killed in the Israeli bombardment on Gaza Strip.
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International efforts to stem the violence appeared to have already begun.
A Palestinian official said that Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations, which have mediated truces between Israel and Hamas in the past, were in contact with the group's leader Ismail Haniyeh.
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