Israel pummeled Gaza City with airstrikes early Monday as violence in the region entered its second week.
The Israeli military said targets included tunnels used by Hamas and homes belonging to several commanders of the militant group that rules Gaza.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The attack followed comments Sunday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he was not planning any “immediate” end to deadly airstrikes on Gaza.
He spoke the same day that Israeli jet fighters flattened three buildings and killed at least 42 people, the deadliest single attack in the latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas.
On Sunday morning, Hamas launched rockets from civilian areas in Gaza toward Israeli civilian areas. One hit a synagogue in Ashkelon, a southern city, hours before evening services for Jewish holiday of Shavuot. No injuries were reported.
Since the fighting began on May 10, at least 197 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 58 children and 34 women, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. At least 10 Israelis have been killed in the rocket attacks, including a six-year-old.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had phone calls with his counterparts in Egypt, Qatar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and France Sunday to discuss “the urgent work to halt the conflict gripping in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza.”
With Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry, Blinken “reiterated his call on all parties to de-escalate tensions and bring a halt to the violence, which has claimed the lives of Israeli and Palestinian civilians, including children,” the State Department said in a statement.
Blinken and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud discussed “the ongoing efforts to calm tensions in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza and bring the current violence to an end.”
In a televised address flanked by his defense minister and political rival, Benny Gantz, in a show of unity, Netanyahu told the Jewish state Sunday that the attacks were continuing at “full force” and will “take time.”
“I hope it won’t take long,” Netanyahu told CBS’s “Face the Nation” show in the United States. But he said the end of the attacks was “not immediate” despite international efforts to broker a cease-fire in the weeklong exchange of missile fire between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli airstrikes targeted a major downtown street of residential buildings and store fronts over a five-minute period early Sunday, flattening two adjacent buildings and another about 50 meters away.
Israel also bombed the house of Yehya Al-Sinwar, the top Hamas leader in Gaza. It was not immediately clear if Sinwar was home. An Associated Press report said he was “likely in hiding along with the rest of the group’s upper echelon.”
Source-VOA
