Heaviest fighting since 2014 convulses Israel-Gaza border

Israelis and Gazans woke to another day of rocket fire and airstrikes yesterday, adding new urgency to efforts to quell fighting that is the heaviest since their 2014 war.

Months of contacts led by the United Nations and Egypt aimed at reaching a long-term truce seemed less promising as Gaza rocket squads unleashed the biggest bombardment of southern Israel in four years, and Israel pounded targets across the Hamas-run territory. Eleven Gaza militants, an Israeli soldier, and a Palestinian in Israel have been killed since the violence was triggered Sunday night by a bungled Israeli intelligence operation inside Gaza.

The Israeli military said about 400 launches were identified from Gaza since Sunday night, including more than 100 intercepted by missile defenses. Israeli aircraft struck about 150 militant targets including military compounds, weapons manufacturing and storage sites, underground tunnels, Hamas naval vessels, rocket-launching sites and Hamas’s al-Aqsa television, the military said.

The intense clashes threatened to explode into war, and have dealt a blow to efforts by Egypt and the UN to forge a sustainable cease-fire and ease the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory. The enclave has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since Hamas seized power more than a decade ago. Sanctions applied by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, as well as Hamas’s decision to spend its money on weapons rather than infrastructure or social services, have deepened the area’s destitution.

Israel’s security cabinet convened yesterday morning, Army Radio reported, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under intense pressure from some politicians and residents of southern Israel to act more forcefully against Gaza militants. His decision to let a Qatari plane land last week with suitcases of cash designed to ease Gaza’s distress has also been attacked by critics who say Israel is paying protection money to Hamas in hopes of achieving quiet.

On Sunday, hours after telling reporters in Paris that he’d prefer a long-term truce to war, Netanyahu cut short a European trip to deal with the outbreak of fighting.

UN special envoy Nickolay Mladenov said on Twitter that he has been working closely with Egypt to “ensure that Gaza steps back from the brink.”

“The escalation in the past 24hrs is EXTREMELY dangerous and reckless,” Mladenov wrote late Sunday. “Rockets must STOP, restraint must be shown by all! No effort must be spared to reverse the spiral of violence.”

A spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obeida, warned on Twitter of harsher strikes to come if the Israeli attacks continue, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cut short a trip to Kuwait and his office said he held “intensive regional and international contacts” to try to stop Israel’s assaults. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt laid the blame squarely at Hamas’s door, saying its activities “continue to prove they don’t really care about the Palestinians of Gaza.”

“Israel is forced once again into military action to defend its citizens,” he tweeted. “We stand with Israel as it defends itself against these attacks.”

Israeli reserves soldiers have not been mobilized, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told reporters in a briefing. He estimated Gaza militants have more than 20,000 rockets and mortars of varying calibers and ranges.

In its assaults on Gaza, Israel has signaled to Hamas “that we have the intelligence and the capabilities to strike a very wide array of military targets that belong to Hamas, and we aren’t bound only to weapons facilities and positions, etc.,” Conricus said. “So there is definitely ample room for additional targets.”

Confrontations between Gaza and Israel have been escalating since Palestinians launched a campaign of anti-Israel protests in late March. Israeli snipers deployed on the border have killed more than 220 Palestinians, and one Israeli soldier has been killed by sniper fire from Gaza. The campaign began as an effort to draw attention to Palestinians’ plight but has included repeated attacks on Israel and efforts to breach the border. Bloomberg