Israel-Palestinian Conflict Escalates As Rockets Fly, Riots Flare

Tel Aviv, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th May, 2021 ) :Israel faced an escalating conflict on two fronts Thursday, scrambling to quell riots between Arabs and Jews on its own streets after days of exchanging deadly fire with Islamist militants in Gaza.

Defence Minister Benny Gantz ordered a "massive reinforcement" of security forces to quell mob violence across the country, where police stations have been attacked and people savagely beaten on both sides.

Despite global alarm and diplomatic efforts to halt the spiralling violence, which US President Joe Biden said he hoped would end "sooner than later", hundreds of rockets again tore through the skies over the Gaza Strip overnight.

Israel's air force launched multiple strikes with fighter jets, targeting what it described as locations linked to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza.

In Gaza, 83 people were reported killed since Monday -- including 17 children -- and more than 480 people wounded as heavy bombardment has rocked the crowded coastal enclave and brought down entire tower blocks.

The Israeli military said it had struck Gaza targets more than 600 times, while Hamas had fired over 1,600 rockets towards Israel.

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, as air raid warnings once more went off across Israel.

In southern Israel, seven people were killed, including one six-year-old, after a rocket struck a family home, the United Hatzalah volunteer rescue service said.

Recent days have seen the most intense hostilities in seven years between Israel and Gaza's armed groups, triggered by weekend unrest at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

The unrest has been driven by anger over the looming evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of east Jerusalem.