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LAST UPDATE | 13 May 2021
*Updated at 08.40 AM Friday
THE ISRAELI MILITARY continued its assault on the Gaza Strip as part of the ongoing military operation against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, but clarified reports that its ground troops were entering Gaza.
On Thursday night, the Israel Defense Forces said, “IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip”, prompting concerns of a major escalation in Palestinian territory.
However, the IDF later clarified that an “internal miscommunication” had resulted in the incorrect information being released, saying its troops were continuing ground operations “against Palestinian militants”, but not inside Gaza.
As violence escalated throughout the day, Israeli security forces also scrambled to contain deadly riots between Jews and Arabs, with projectiles also fired on Israel from Lebanon.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “deeply concerned about the violence in the streets of Israel”, voicing support for a United Nations Security Council meeting “early next week” on the crisis.
“We believe that Israelis and Palestinians deserve equal measures of freedom, security, dignity and prosperity,” Blinken said.
There were intense artillery exchanges tonight, and AFP reporters saw Israeli troops assembling at the security barrier.
Balls of flames rose high into the sky after strikes smashed into densely packed Gaza.
Dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza towards the southern Israeli coastal cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon, and in the vicinity of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
“We are prepared, and continue to prepare for various scenarios,” Conricus said, earlier describing a ground offensive as “one scenario”.
In Gaza, AFP photographers said people were evacuating their homes in the northeastern part of the enclave ahead of possible Israeli attacks, with Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, warning of a “heavy response” to a possible ground incursion.
‘Massive reinforcement’
With the conflict showing no signs of easing, Israel has been rocked by an unprecedented wave of mob violence, in which both Arabs and Jews have been savagely beaten and police stations attacked.
Defence Minister Benny Gantz ordered a “massive reinforcement” to suppress the internal unrest.
Despite global alarm and diplomatic efforts to de-escalate Gaza hostilities, which US President Joe Biden said he hoped would end “sooner than later”, hundreds of rockets again tore through the skies.
The heavy bombardments coincided with the start of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, and saw the faithful pray at mosques and amid the rubble of Gaza’s collapsed buildings.
Israel’s air force launched multiple air strikes, targeting locations linked to Hamas, with the air force saying jets had struck a “military compound” of the group’s “intelligence headquarters”.
At least 103 people have been killed since Monday, including 27 children, and more than 580 wounded, the health ministry in Gaza said.
Heavy bombardments have brought down entire tower blocks.
Inside Israel, seven people have been killed since Monday, including one six-year-old, after a rocket struck a family home.
‘Preventing pogroms’
The Israeli military said it had hit targets in Gaza more than 600 times while 1,750 rockets were fired from the enclave.
Hundreds of rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defence system.
Three rockets were also fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel, landing in the Mediterranean Sea, Israel’s army said.
A source close to Israel’s arch-enemy Hezbollah said the Lebanese Shiite group had no link to the incident.
The military escalation was triggered by weekend unrest at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
The disturbances, in which riot police had repeatedly clashed with Palestinians, has been driven by anger over the looming evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of east Jerusalem.
The surging tensions sparked clashes in many of Israel’s mixed towns where Jews live alongside Arabs, who make up about 20% of the country’s population.
Nearly 1,000 border police were called in to quell the violence, and over 400 people were arrested.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said inter-communal violence in multiple towns was at a nadir not seen for decades, and that police were “literally preventing pogroms”.
‘Two-front battle’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said police were increasing their use of force, warning of the “option” of deploying soldiers in towns.
Israeli far-right groups have clashed with security forces and Arab Israelis, with television footage Wednesday airing footage of a far-right mob beating a man they considered an Arab in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv, leaving him with serious injuries.
In Lod, which has become a flashpoint of Arab-Jewish clashes this week with an Arab resident shot dead and a synagogue torched, a gunman opened fire Thursday at a group of Jews, wounding one.
Netanyahu said the violence was “unacceptable”.
“Nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews, and nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs,” he said, adding Israel was fighting a battle “on two fronts”.
Amid the rocket fire, Israel’s civil aviation authority said it had diverted all incoming passenger flights headed for Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport to Ramon airport in the south.
Hamas announced it had also fired a rocket at Ramon, in a bid to stop all air traffic to Israel.
Israeli media said the rocket missed its target, but a number of international airlines cancelled flights amid the aerial onslaught.
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The general of the presidential guard was going to lose his job and was not happy about it. Calling this high treason is ironic when he is the one who did a coup against a democratically elected president and government. The coup is high treason.
@ForrestG45: Yes, it is, in this case, and in every other case. But at some point (I’m not talking about this one), if someone is committing treason or doing something so bad, like declaring war when the people don’t want it, or malnutrition its people, kind of like Kim Jong Un, then only by committing treason you can depose a tyrant. The people in power write the laws and defines treason.
This should be done here with the current cabinet.
Am sure some democracy bombs will sort them out. Just like Libya.
Under the Bazoum ‘democracy’ the natural resources were taken by France under the guns of the French and US military. Bazoum was handsomely rewarded for this treachory while the people of (name of country censored) go hungry. This coup was carried out without a single death because it had he support of the people of (name of country censored).
@Fearg: (name of country censored)? NIGER is the name of the country it’s clearly not sensored so why claim it is?.
@Fearg: I think you will find that resources were bought with hard currency rather that ‘taken’ (stolen) as you suggest
@donal O’brien: They were not bought they were taken. French companies own the mines. Niger only gets 14% of the value of what France takes. 1 in every 3 houses in France is powered by uranium from Niger while 90% of Niger’s population don’t even have electricity.
The people of Niger are 100% correct to take back the resources from any western nation that claims them and charge a fair price for them. Will the military junta do that remains to be seen but that’s nothing to do with us
@Roy Dowling: incorrect. Less than 10% of Niger’s uranium is used in French nuclear plants. France and the EU have diversified their supply in the last while to counter such risks, with the likes of Kazakhstan, Canada and soon Uzbekistan.
@ForrestG45: sorry meant less than 10% of uranium used in French nuclear plants is coming from Niger.
Any chance of a report on the voter fraud operation in Michigan that was operating during the 2020 election? A paid election worker has been indicted after she registered approx 10,000 dubious voters. That was in one Michigan county. She was also operating in several other Michigan counties.
Plus she was part of a larger team of paid election operatives.
@Monetpenny: She was operating in several different counties at once? Right. Is she there with you now?
@F Fitzgerald. Yes she was. She didn’t perform the miracle of bi-location but you do understand people can operate on different counties at the same time? I have a friend who is a business rep for Kerry, Limerick & Clare. That is possible. It doesn’t mean he is in the same county at the same time nor does his employer expect him to be in the three counties at the same time.
Perhaps if the Journal did a report on it you might understsnd.
have your say