Israel goes in: Ground troops storm into Gaza as air force bombards targets

Israeli ground troops have stormed into Gaza as its air force bombarded targets and officials ordered everyone living within miles of the border to go to bunkers amid fears of fierce retaliation from Hamas.

The Israel Defense Force tweeted from its official account on Thursday night: ‘IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip.’

Military spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus confirmed: ‘There are ground troops attacking in Gaza, together with air forces as well.’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted moments later: ‘The last word was not said and this operation will continue as long as necessary.’

It is not yet clear whether the offensive was to destroy rocket sites or Hamas leaders or part of an extended campaign to invade Gaza.

Earlier Israel called up 9,000 reservists to bolster its forces as it deployed troops to the border in preparation for the ground assault.

Relentless air strikes continued to decimate Hamas strongholds in the Strip on Thursday as their brigades held funerals for slain commanders, including the terror boss of Gaza City and their intelligence chief.

Meanwhile three rockets were fired from southern Lebanon towards northern Israel but reportedly fell into the Mediterranean without injuring anyone.

Local media said they were fired by one of the Palestinian factions in Lebanon and that it was not the start of Hezbollah getting involved in the conflict.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing the prospect of a war on two fronts as internal rioting by Jewish and Arab mobs descended into ‘lynchings’ in the worst civil unrest for decades.

Hamas requested a ceasefire on a ‘mutual basis’ late on Wednesday after firing more than 1,600 rockets into densely populated Israeli neighbourhoods, killing seven civilians including a five-year-old boy.

Netanyahu rejected the peace offering despite growing international alarm at the rising civilian death toll after over 600 air strikes on Hamas targets – 103 Palestinians have been killed, including 27 children and 11 women.

Troops were ordered to the Gaza border on Thursday in ‘various stages of preparing ground operations’, a military spokesman said, a move which recalls similar incursions during Israel-Gaza wars in 2014 and 2008-2009.

The IDF had said an infantry assault was just ‘one scenario’ which was being considered as it deployed several units to the border, including the Paratroopers Brigade, Golani Infantry Brigade and 7th Armoured Brigade.

‘The campaign is still far from over,’ a minister said after a cabinet meeting last night with Netanyahu. ‘Whatever we don’t do now, we will have to do in six months or a year from now.’

He told Israeli news site Ynet: ‘When we have hit all our targets and the other side has still not surrendered, we will launch a ground operation even though we do not seek it.’

Plans for the ground invasion were earlier being drafted for approval by Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Aviv Kohavi later on Thursday, according to the Jerusalem Post. If they get the General’s sign off, the plans will be passed on to Netanyahu and his cabinet.

‘This will not end in the next few days,’ the cabinet minister added. ‘Israel will not stop and has no interest in stopping.

‘It is all moving in the right direction. We will act until they admit that opening fire was a mistake, just as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah did after the Second Lebanon War in 2006.’

As Joe Biden and Boris Johnson made appeals for calm yesterday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a forceful partisan condemnation – saying that Israel needed to be taught a ‘lesson’.

He told Russia’s Vladimir Putin during a phone call of the need for ‘the international community to give Israel a strong and deterrent lesson’ as he called on the UN to intervene with a ‘determined and clear message.’ 

The appeals fell on deaf ears this morning as Israel and Hamas exchanged cross-border blows throughout the early hours of Thursday – sending Israelis fleeing into air raid shelters, while Palestinians evacuated their apartments.    

Among the high-ranking commanders ‘neutralised’ in strikes on Wednesday were Brigadier General Bassem Issa, chief of the Gaza City Brigades, and Jamal Zabda, head of the group’s rocket unit and responsible for the improved accuracy of their projectiles.  

The IDF says it has launched strikes on 650 targets, including militants, infrastructure, missile-launch sites, central banks and administrative buildings key to maintaining power in the Strip. 

Brigadier General Hidai Zilberman told reporters early Thursday: ‘Tonight we started destroying government targets in the Gaza Strip, such as central banks and internal security buildings. Hamas is beginning to discover cracks and there is pressure in the organization, even among the Gaza public who is losing its patience and sees these ruins on the eve of the holiday (Eid).’   

Three tower blocks have been levelled in assaults by the Israel Air Force and the Islamists’ network of underground tunnels has been decimated by bunker buster bombs.

As well as high-ranking commanders, the IDF say they have killed another 60 Hamas militants.

Funerals for 14 slain Hamas members, including the terror chief Issa, were held at the Omari Grand Mosque in Gaza City on Thursday.

Hundreds of men were seen walking through the streets with the bodies draped in the green flags of Hamas as sobbing women and children watched from windows and balconies.

At the same time, in the Israeli settlement of Eliakim, hundreds of family members and comrades attended the funeral of 21-year-old soldier Omer Tabib.

Tabib was killed close to the border with Gaza on Wednesday by an anti-tank missile fired at his jeep.

‘Omer, my beautiful child, six years we waited for you and the patience paid off – we received a beautiful child with an eternal smile on his face,’ his mother Tali said, according to Haaretz.

‘I refuse to believe that instead of a blessing for your [finishing the army], I’m searching for words to summarise the period of your life. I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to do it. In my blackest dreams I never thought I’d reach this point. Omer, my beautiful child, give us the strength to know how to continue on.’  

The fighting has sparked violent clashes between Arabs and Jews in Israel, in ugly scenes which have not been witnessed for more than 20 years amid fears of a civil war. 

Twenty were injured last night as mobs attacked each other in the central city of Lod which has been the epicentre for the troubles despite a curfew imposed earlier this week and a state of emergency declared by Netanyahu.

Israeli police said two people were shot and wounded while an Israeli Jew was stabbed on his way to the synagogue by a Muslim Arab on Thursday morning despite the deployment of additional security forces. 

Dozens of people were arrested there and in other towns across Israel where clashes and rioting broke out. 

A Jewish man was left in intensive care after being beaten with metal bars and rocks by an Arab gang in the northern city of Acre.

In Jerusalem, a 25-year-old Arab employee was set upon by a gang of Jews while taking out the rubbish. He was stabbed in the neck and remains in hospital, according to the Israel National News.

In the coastal city of Bat Yam, less than ten miles from Lod, Israeli nationalists attacked an Arab motorist, dragging him from his car and beating him until he was unconscious. 

‘The victim of the lynching is seriously injured but stable,’ Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital said, without identifying him.  

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who celebrated a Ramadan ‘iftar’ meal just weeks ago, on Wednesday condemned what he termed a ‘pogrom’ by a ‘blood-thirsty Arab mob.’

‘The sight of the pogroms in Lod and the disturbances across the country by an incited and bloodthirsty Arab mob, injuring people, damaging property and even attacking sacred Jewish spaces is unforgivable,’ Rivlin said in an unusually strongly-worded statement on Wednesday.  

Netanyahu said that ‘what has been happening these last few days in Israeli towns is unacceptable.’

‘Nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews, and nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs,’ he said, adding that Israel was fighting a battle ‘on two fronts’.

Netanyahu warned that he was prepared to use an ‘iron fist if necessary’ to calm the violence 

Yesterday Mr Johnson tweeted a plea for Israel and Hamas to ‘step back from the brink’ and ‘show restraint’. 

He added: ‘The UK is deeply concerned by the growing violence and civilian casualties and we want to see an urgent de-escalation of tensions.’ 

His calls were backed up by similar messages from the EU, the US, Russia and Turkey.

British Airways on Thursday joined a raft of other international airlines in cancelling routes to Tel Aviv as the conflict saw no signs of abating. 

‘The safety and security of our colleagues and customers is always our top priority, and we continue to monitor the situation closely,’ British Airways said.

United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines on Wednesday all cancelled flights between the United States and Tel Aviv.

The UN’s Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland on Wednesday warned the latest violence was ‘escalating towards a full-scale war’. And UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he was ‘gravely concerned’ by the ongoing troubles. 

Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired more than 1,000 missiles in the first 48 hours of the conflict which began on Monday, an average of one every three minutes, and has enough to keep the bombardment going for two months.

Israeli military spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus said: ‘According to our estimates we’re talking about between 20,000 and 30,000 rockets in Gaza today, rockets and mortars.

‘We’ve seen a constant expansion in terms of range and also in terms of the size of the warheads. They have an advanced arsenal of rockets, I think it’s on a par with the fire capabilities of a few small European countries.’  

While Israel’s Iron Dome aerial defence system has intercepted nine out of ten Palestinian rockets, the remainder have killed at least six civilians and injured more than 90. Families in Tel Aviv spent most of yesterday taking cover in underground shelters.

Israel’s retaliation has included hundreds of air strikes on Gaza, led by F-35 stealth bombers and Apache attack helicopters, which are understood to have killed 32 and wounded more than 300.

Israel says most of the dead were terrorists and insists the children killed were victims of stray Palestinian rockets.

The UN security council met yesterday to discuss the crisis. The heaviest offensive between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in the Hamas-ruled enclave has increased international concern the situation could spiral out of control.

‘Israel has gone crazy,’ said a man on a Gaza street, where people ran out of their homes as explosions rocked buildings.  

Israel’s army on Thursday said it had received a rocket warning in the north of the country, the first time the alert has been given there since hostilities soared between Israel and Palestinians earlier this week.

The approximately 1,500 rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas militants since Monday had so far set off warnings in southern and central Israel, but not in the north, the army said. 

However in the small hours of Thursday morning, alarms not only sounded in the economic capital Tel Aviv in the middle of the country – where residents rushed to shelters – but also in Jezreel Valley in the north.

There was no immediate word of a rocket strike or casualties in Nahalal, some 62 miles. 

Since hostilities escalated on Monday evening, Hamas has fired around 1,500 rockets from Gaza into Israeli territory, according to the latest estimate by Israel’s army.

The launch of around 350 rockets had failed, while hundreds more were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system, the army said.

Seven people in Israel have been killed by the onslaught, including a six-year-old and a soldier.

Unrest has been growing in Israel and Gaza in recent weeks following violent confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem and a long-running dispute over the eviction of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem in favour of Jewish settlers. 

The UN Security Council held another emergency meeting on Wednesday on worsening hostilities, again without agreeing on a joint statement due to opposition from the United States, Israel’s key ally, diplomats said.

According to several sources, 14 of the 15 members of the Council were in favour of adopting a joint declaration aimed at reducing tension.

However, the United States saw the Security Council meeting as a sufficient show of concern, diplomats told AFP on condition of anonymity, and did not think a statement would ‘help de-escalate’ the situation.

‘The United States has been actively engaged in diplomacy behind the scenes with all parties, and across the region, to seek to de-escalate the situation. At this stage, a Council statement would be counterproductive,’ said one source familiar with discussions, also speaking anonymously.

A new meeting – this time public – could be held within days, however. 

Netanyahu vows to ‘inflict blows that Hamas has not dreamed of’ before Israeli air strike levels 14-storey building and Hamas retaliates with 130 rockets

Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday threatened to ‘inflict blows that Hamas has not dreamed of’ before Israeli rockets levelled a 14-storey tower bloc, prompting Hamas to retaliate with 130 rockets of its own, as the deadly fighting in the middle east continued on Wednesday.

Israeli fighter jets dropped two bombs on the 14-storey Al-Sharouk tower, which housed the bureau of the Al-Aqsa television channel, and is the third tall structure in Gaza City levelled since the bombing campaign began Monday.

The Israeli Prime Minister issued the threat as he visited a hospital in the city of Holon today, paying tribute to those wounded in fighting between the two sides that is now at its worst point since the 2014 Gaza War.

Referencing the deaths of Hamas commanders earlier in the day – including Brigadier General Bassem Issa and Jamal Zabda, head of the group’s rocket unit – Netanyahu vowed: ‘This is only the beginning.’

His comments came despite international calls for urgent deescalation and as Israel braces for more missile strikes overnight to avenge the deaths of its commanders.

In just two days of fighting, Hamas has fired more than 1,000 rockets at Israel, while the Jewish state has carried out counter-strikes against what it called military targets.

But the civilian death toll is quickly mounting, with at least 67 Palestinians including 16 children and three women killed as of Wednesday evening, alongside seven Israelis including one child and one soldier. 

Israeli police announced Wednesday they are imposing a nighttime curfew on the central city of Lod, that was the scene of unrest in recent days

Police said in a statement that officers would enforce the ban on people entering Lod, residents leaving their homes, and people in public spaces starting at 8 p.m.

Lod has seen two nights of violent protests, including the torching of dozens of vehicles, a synagogue, and violent clashes between Arab protesters and police. Israeli authorities declared a state of emergency in the city and deployed Border Police forces. 

Hamas has confirmed that Bassem Issa, commander of its Gaza City Brigade, was among those ‘martyred’ today.

Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, named another three slain Hamas officers: Jamaa Tahla, responsible for the improved accuracy of the group’s rockets; Jamal Zabeda, chief of ‘special projects’ in the munitions department; and Hazzem Hatib, head engineer in the munitions wing.

The militants have launched more than 1,050 rockets at Israel since Monday, killing six civilians, including an Arab-Israeli girl in the city of Lod in the early hours of this morning. 

‘The army will continue to attack to bring a total, long-term quiet. Only when we reach that goal will we be able to speak about a truce,’ Defence Minister Benny Gantz said today from the southern town of Ashkelon where two Israeli women were killed by Hamas rockets on Tuesday. 

Along the Gaza border, an Israeli soldier was also killed by an anti-tank missile, the military said. 

Britain, the United States and Russia among international voices calling for de-escalation in Israel-Gaza conflict

Calls for deescalation of the conflict have come from senior politicians around the world, including the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia.

Washington announced that it planned to send an envoy, Hady Amr, for talks with Israel and Palestinians.

‘My expectation and hope is this will be closing down sooner than later, but Israel has a right to defend itself,’ Biden said on Wednesday after speaking to Netanyahu.

Biden did not explain the reasons behind his optimism. Netanyahu’s office said he told the U.S. president that Israel would ‘continue acting to strike at the military capabilities of Hamas and the other terrorist groups active in the Gaza Strip’.

Biden’s British counterpart Boris Johnson Boris condemned the spiralling conflict, saying he was ‘urging Israel and the Palestinians to step back from the brink and for both sides to show restraint’ on Wednesday morning.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for an urgent meeting of the Middle East Quartet in order to halt violence between Israel and the Palestinians. 

Ms Psaki said that the Biden administration has ‘had more than 25, high level calls and meetings by senior US officials with senior officials from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and their partners and other stakeholders.

‘A lot of it is happening, privately through diplomatic channels, it’s happening with officials in the region we’re in regular dialogue, multiple times per day as I noted with the Egyptian and Qatari officials, who have significant influence over Hamas – and our objective here is descalation as we look to protecting the people to reach out.’ 

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has called Netanyahu to reaffirm America’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks. 

The country’s State Department said he also repeated U.S. calls for a de-escalation of violence and the Biden administration’s belief that both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live in safety and security.

Blinken announced earlier he was sending a senior diplomat to the region to make similar appeals in person to Israeli and Palestinian officials. He also said that Israel had an ‘extra burden’ to avoid civilian casualties as it responds to the attacks.

According to the State Department, Blinken also told Netanyahu that as he and President Joe Biden have said in the past, the administration believes Israelis and Palestinians should ‘enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and democracy.’  

He also ’emphasised the need for Israelis and Palestinians to be able to live in safety and security, as well as enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and democracy,’ in an apparent effort for the Biden administration to demonstrate that it cares about Palestinian rights, according to Politico. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he wants to see an ‘urgent de-escalation of tensions’ between Israel and Hamas amid the most severe outbreak of violence since the 2014 Gaza war.

Johnson tweeted on Wednesday that the United Kingdom is ‘deeply concerned’ and urged leaders to ‘step back from the brink.’

He was one of many leaders around the world offering up advice after longtime tensions in contested Jerusalem erupted into rocket-fire from the Gaza Strip and an intense response from Israel.

British Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly told Parliament that Britain ‘unequivocally condemns the firing of rockets at Jerusalem and other locations in Israel.’ He called Hamas’ conduct ‘terrorism’ and called on militants to ‘end their incitement and rocket fire against Israel.’

Cleverly said Israel has a ‘legitimate right to self-defense,’ but added that in doing so, ‘it is vital that all actions are proportionate, in line with international humanitarian law and make every effort to avoid civilian casualties.’

Also on Wednesday, speaking alongside United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Russia’s Lavrov said: ‘Today we’ve come to the common opinion that the most pressing task is to convene the Quartet of international mediators – Russia, the United States, the UN and the EU.’

Just after daybreak, the Israeli Air Force unleashed dozens of strikes within the course of a few minutes with what appeared to be bunker buster bombs targeting underground Hamas infrastructure.   

The Israeli Defence Forces later dispatched two infantry brigades to the area of a downed militant drone, indicating preparations for a possible ground invasion. 

Boris Johnson condemned the spiralling conflict this morning hours after his former counterpart Donald Trump blamed ‘weak’ Joe Biden for allowing things to escalate.

‘I am urging Israel and the Palestinians to step back from the brink and for both sides to show restraint,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘The UK is deeply concerned by the growing violence and civilian casualties.’ 

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab spoke to the Israeli foreign minister on Tuesday and will speak to the Palestinian prime minister on Wednesday, MPs were told in Westminster. 

Despite international condemnation for the bloodshed, the worst since the 2014 war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for ceasefire, vowing last night to ‘step up’ attacks. 

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in turn that ‘if Israel wants to escalate, we are ready for it’. 

The tensions began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Muslim neighbourhoods ignited protests and clashes with police. On Monday, a riot on Temple Mount left hundreds of Palestinians wounded before Hamas started launching rockets.

The International Criminal Court at the Hague announced this morning it was looking at possible ‘crimes’ committed as the ferocious cross-border engagement entered its third day. 

‘I note with great concern the escalation of violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in and around Gaza, and the possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statute (which founded the ICC)’, Fatou Bensouda tweeted. 

More than a hundred Hamas rockets were launched at Israel’s most populous city, Tel Aviv, last night after a tower block in Gaza suspected of being a Hamas headquarters was destroyed by an Israeli air strike.

The IDF have assassinated several top militant commanders, including Hassan Kaogi, head of the Hamas intelligence department, in their airstrikes. 

In a statement, the army said it carried out a ‘complex and first-of-its-kind operation.’ Those targeted, it said, were ‘a key part of the Hamas ‘General Staff” and considered close to the head of the group’s military wing. 

Hamas later confirmed they had lost several of their top brass, including its military chief in Gaza City, Bassem Issa. 

The Israelis accuse the Palestinian fighters of using their own people as human shields, but the civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip have only hardened the position of the extremists who have launched hundreds more missiles. 

In Israel’s central city of Lod, a girl and her father were killed in the early hours of Wednesday by rocket fire from Gaza. Israel’s foreign ministry identified the girl as 16-year-old Nadin Awad, an Arab Israeli.

Her cousin, Ahmad Ismail, told public broadcaster Kan that he was near Nadin when she was killed alongside her father Khalil Awad, 52.

‘I was at home, we heard the noise of the rocket. It happened so quickly. Even if we had wanted to run somewhere, we don’t have a safe room,’ Ismail told Kan. 

Lod also saw riots after thousands of mourners joined a funeral for an Arab man killed by a suspected Jewish gunman the previous night.

The crowd fought with police, and set a synagogue and some 30 vehicles, including a police car, on fire, Israeli media reported.

Paramedics said a 56-year-old man was seriously hurt after his car was pelted with stones. 

The Israeli President Reuven Rivlin described it as a ‘pogrom’ carried out by a ‘bloodthirsty Arab mob,’ after Netanyahu declared a state of emergency in the mixed Jewish-Arab city.

‘The sight of the pogrom in Lod and the disturbances across the country by an incited and bloodthirsty Arab mob, injuring people, damaging property and even attacking sacred Jewish spaces is unforgivable,’ Rivlin said. 

Yair Revivo, mayor of the city, last night called for army back-up to help secure the area, saying ‘civil war’ was breaking out.

‘This is Kristallnacht in Lod,’ said Revivo, in reference to the Nazi pogrom against German Jews in 1938.

‘I have called on the prime minister to declare a state of emergency in Lod. To call in the IDF. To impose a curfew. To restore quiet. There is a failure of governance. 

‘This is a giant incident – an Intifada of Arab Israelis. All the work we have done here for years [on coexistence] has gone down the drain.’ 

Netanhayu made a pre-dawn tour of the city to declare a state of emergency.

‘We will not tolerate this; we need to restore calm,’ Netanyahu said in Lod. ‘If this isn’t an emergency situation, I don’t know what is. We are talking about life and death here.’   

Asked whether the actions of the police against protesters may have played a role, he shut down the suggestion, saying: ‘These events have no excuse; this is fundamental hate.’  

It comes after the PM, speaking after two women were killed in Hamas strikes yesterday, said he ‘deplored’ the deaths in Israel, adding that the country’s military would ‘further increase both the intensity and the rate’ of its own air strikes against Gaza.

‘Hamas will be hit in ways that it does not expect,’ Netanyahu said. ‘We have eliminated commanders, hit many important targets and we have decided to attack harder and increase the pace of attacks.’ 

The homes of three Hamas commanders were destroyed overnight on Wednesday.

A significant barrage had begun by 3am, with Israel firing into the Gaza Strip.

‘In response to HUNDREDS of rockets in the last 24 hours, the IDF has struck a number of significant terror targets and terror operatives across the Gaza Strip, marking our largest strike since 2014,’ the IDF confirmed. 

‘We are currently striking more terror targets in Gaza.’ 

In Israel, five people including three women have been killed. 

One of the three women was in her 60s and another in her 80s, and died during Hamas rocket attacks earlier on Tuesday.

The third woman, aged 50, was killed on Tuesday evening when a rocket hit a building in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion.