Daily Times

Gaza residents cowered indoors on Monday after Israeli jets pounded the enclave, as violence that has killed more than 200 people — overwhelmingly Palestinian — entered a second week.

Before dawn, in the space of just a few minutes, dozens of Israeli strikes bombarded the crowded Palestinian coastal strip controlled by Hamas, according to AFP journalists and the army.

Flames lit up the sky as intense explosions shook Gaza city, sparking widespread power cuts and damaging hundreds of buildings, local authorities said.

Some 3,100 rockets have also been fired by Palestinian fighters toward Israel since the violence escalated on May 10 in the heaviest exchange of fire between the rivals in years, sparked by Israeli violence in Jerusalem.

On Monday morning, an AFP reporter in Gaza saw huge plumes of grey smoke billow from a mattress factory, as civil defence members aimed high-pressure water hoses at the blaze.

As well as strikes from the air, Israeli artillery guns surrounding Gaza have also been firing barrages of shells.

Later in the day, dust clouds rose from near Gaza’s port from further explosions. West Gaza resident Mahdi Abed Rabbo, 39, expressed “horror and fear” at the intensity of the onslaught.

“There have never been strikes of this magnitude,” he said.

Gaza resident Mani Qazaat said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “should realise we’re civilians, not fighters”.

“I felt like I was dying,” he said.

2,500 homeless

Israel’s army said on Monday it hit the homes of nine “high-ranking” Hamas commanders, a day after strikes on the house of Yahya Sinwar, head of the group’s political wing.

It gave no details of any casualties.

On Monday, an Islamic Jihad commander was killed, a source within the group and the Israeli army said.

The Israeli army also said its fighter jets hit what the army calls the “Metro”, its term for 15 kilometres (nine miles) of Hamas underground tunnels, which the army has previously acknowledged runs in part through civilian areas.

The renewed strikes come a day after 42 Palestinians in Gaza — including at least eight children and two doctors, according to the health ministry — were killed in the worst daily death toll in the enclave since the bombardments began.

In total, 198 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including at least 58 children, and more than 1,200 wounded since Israel launched its air campaign against Hamas on May 10 after the group fired rockets, according to the authorities there. Israel says 10 people, including one child, have been killed and 294 wounded by rocket fire launched by armed groups in Gaza.

The army said about 3,100 rockets had been fired in the past week from Gaza — the highest rate ever recorded — but added its Iron Dome anti-missile system had intercepted over 1,000.

Netanyahu said in a televised address on Sunday that Israel’s “campaign against the terrorist organisations is continuing with full force” and would “take time” to finish. Israeli bombardment of Gaza has displaced 38,000 people and made 2,500 homeless, the United Nations says.