Tensions between Israel and Hamas continued on Wednesday, with at least 35 people killed in Gaza and five in Israel during a major air exchange for years, 35 killed in Gaza.
Israel staged hundreds of strikes in Gaza until Wednesday morning, when a group of Muslims and other Palestinian soldiers fired several bullets at Tel Aviv and Beersheba.
One high-rise apartment building in Gaza has collapsed and another has been severely damaged by Israeli air strikes.
Israel said its planes had shot dead several Hamas intelligence leaders early Wednesday morning. Some of the strikes targeted military rallies at rocket launchers, Hamas offices and the homes of Hamas leaders. 35 killed in Gaza.
It was the worst act between Israel and Hamas since the 2014 war in Gaza, and it sparked international concern that the situation could be controlled.
UN Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland wrote on Twitter: “Stop the fire immediately. We are on the verge of a full-scale war. Leaders on all sides must take responsibility for the decline.
“The cost of the war in Gaza is negligible and paid by ordinary people. The UN is working w / all sides to restore peace. Stop the violence now,” he wrote.
The homes of the Gazans were shaken and the sky lit up from the Israeli invasion, with rockets coming out and Israeli air defense arrows blocking them. At least 30 explosions were heard within minutes of Wednesday morning.
The Israelites fled to shelters or landed on the roads in communities over 70 miles (45 miles) up the coast and south of Israel amid the explosion as arrows of entry into the sky.
In the Arab and Jewish city of Lod, near Tel Aviv, two people were killed after a rocket struck a car in the area. Lod and other allied cities are embroiled in angry protests over Gaza violence and tensions in Jerusalem. 35 killed in Gaza.
Hamas’s armed forces said it had detonated 210 rockets near Beersheba and Tel Aviv in a bomb blast in Gaza City. Israeli forces say that about a third of the rockets fell off and landed in Gaza.
In Israel, the military offensive in Tel Aviv, its commercial capital, was a new challenge in the fight against the Islamist group Hamas, which was considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States.
The violence followed tensions in Jerusalem during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, with clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and surrounding areas of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
This escalated in recent days before a court hearing – which has been postponed – in a case that could have ended with Palestinian families being evicted from East Jerusalem homes wanted by Jewish residents.
Violence has also erupted in the West Bank, when a 26-year-old Palestinian man was killed by gunfire in Israel during a stone attack on a refugee camp near the city of Hebron.
‘THE BEST PRICE’
It does not look like an end to violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that troops will pay a “heavy” amount of rockets, reaching the outskirts of Jerusalem on Monday during a holiday in Israel to commemorate the capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war.
The outbreak of hostilities has prompted Netanyahu’s political opponents to suspend negotiations to form a coalition of right-wing, left-wing and left-wing parties to oust him after the March 23 by-elections.
Opposition leader Jair Lapid has three weeks to form a new government – with a new election – and another opportunity for Netanyahu to retain power – if he fails.
