Israeli air and ground troops yesterday launched a blistering assault on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, sweeping aside international appeals for de-escalation after four days of aerial bombardments failed to quell the heaviest militant rocket fire yet on Israel from the Palestinian enclave.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that an extended campaign was in the offing.
The decision to escalate with heavy aircraft, tank and artillery fire came at a uniquely sensitive time, as Israel grappled with the worst outbreak in years of violence between Arabs and Jews inside its borders.
Photo: REUTERS
Trouble loomed on another front after three rockets launched from Lebanon crashed into the Mediterranean off Israel’s northern coast on Wednesday, raising the specter of a second battleground with Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militants.
“I said that we will exact a very heavy price from Hamas,” Netanyahu wrote on Facebook. “We are doing so and will continue to do so with great force. The last word hasn’t been said, and this campaign will continue as long as necessary.”
The death toll and devastation from the fighting mounted on Thursday.
More than 100 Palestinians and seven Israelis have been killed and hundreds of buildings across Gaza damaged.
An envoy from Egypt, which traditionally has been involved in ending flare-ups of Israel-Gaza violence, arrived to talk to both sides as part of a broader international effort to put an end to the conflict.
The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting on the conflict for today.
Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Avichay Adraee yesterday said that 160 warplanes carried out airstrikes after midnight, and used 450 bombs and missiles against 150 targets, including tunnels used by Hamas in northern Gaza.
He added that a drone launched from Gaza had been intercepted.
The fighting erupted on Monday as rivals of Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, were trying to form a government to unseat him.
He was handed a lifeline when a crucial prospective partner pulled out of coalition negotiations, citing the clashes.
The conflict threatens to deteriorate into an all-out war that could draw in other regional players.
“It will take more time to restore calm,” Netanyahu said on Thursday, as the military was authorized to call up 9,000 more reservists and readied scenarios including a possible ground incursion.
“Ground forces are ready and are studying the terrain,” military spokesman Hidai Zilberman said. “We’ll activate them when we deem it appropriate.”
Israel and Gaza have skirmished repeatedly since Hamas took control of the territory in 2007 and have fought three wars, the last seven years ago.
The current round has roots in tensions that have been festering since the beginning of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan last month. Israeli restrictions on gathering at a traditional Ramadan meeting place in Jerusalem touched off the unrest, but after they were lifted, protests were rekindled by the threatened evictions of Palestinians from their long-time homes in the eastern sector of the city that Israel captured from Jordan in 1967.
The Palestinians and much of the international community consider East Jerusalem occupied territory.
The fighting in Gaza has spilled over into communal clashes inside Israel, where decades of pent-up grievances and nationalism have exploded into rampages by Arabs and Jews.
Street battles have spread across the country, with marauders attacking people, synagogues, businesses and vehicles.
While Israeli Arabs, who account for about one-fifth of the population, enjoy equal rights on paper, their communities do not receive the same level of government funding, leading to poorer roads, schools and health services.
Israel’s political paralysis after four inconclusive elections, and the emboldening of Jewish ultranationalists through their election to parliament, have also played a role.
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)