Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he ordered the military to continue “massive strikes” against militants in Gaza as a surge in cross-border hostilities ran into a third day.
A rocket fired from Gaza killed an Israeli civilian Sunday and two Palestinian gunmen were killed in an Israeli strike, with no sign of any impending cease-fire in the most serious border flare-up since November.
Israel’s military said more than 450 rockets, many of them intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system, have been fired at southern Israeli cities and villages since Friday, and it had attacked some 220 targets belonging to Gaza militant groups.
Police said one of the rockets hit a house in the city of Ashkelon, killing a 58-year-old man, who was struck in the chest by shrapnel. That marked the first Israeli civilian fatality in a rocket strike from Gaza since a 2014 war between Israel and militants in the Hamas-run enclave.
“This morning I instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to continue with massive strikes against terrorists in the Gaza Strip and I also instructed that forces around the Gaza Strip be stepped up with tank, artillery and infantry forces,” Netanyahu, who doubles as Israeli defense minister, said in a statement.
Egyptian and U.N. mediators, credited with brokering cease-fires in previous rounds of violence, were working to prevent further hostilities.
Violence began Friday
The latest round of violence began Friday when a Palestinian Islamic Jihad sniper fired at Israeli troops, wounding two soldiers, according to the Israeli military.
Israel retaliated with an airstrike that killed two militants from the armed Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza.
Two other Palestinians protesting near the frontier were killed by Israeli forces the same day, Palestinian officials said.
Rockets on Saturday
Since Saturday, Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants fired more than 400 rockets at Israeli villages and cities, the military said, and Israel hit back with tank shelling and airstrikes at some 200 targets in Gaza.
Islamic Jihad said in a statement that the rocket barrages were a response to Friday’s events and that Israel has been delaying the implementation of previous understandings brokered by Cairo.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus said Saturday that Israel was prepared to intensify attacks. He added that Islamic Jihad was trying to destabilize the border and blamed Hamas for failing to rein it in.
In a joint statement Saturday, Hamas and Islamic Jihad said: “Our response will be broader and more painful if the enemy pursues its aggression.”
Ramadan, Independence Day
The escalation comes just ahead of both the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Israel’s Independence Day holiday.
Israel is to host the 2019 Eurovision song contest finals in less than two weeks in Tel Aviv, toward which long-range rockets were launched in mid-March.
Although aerial exchanges are frequent, Israel and Hamas have managed to avert all-out war for the past five years.
…