Israel stepped up its attacks on the Gaza Strip, flattening a high-rise building used by the Hamas militant group and killing at least three militants in their hideouts on Tuesday as Palestinian rockets rained down almost nonstop on parts of Israel, APNews reports.
With this, Palestinian Hamas militants launched the heaviest attack since 2014. On Tuesday, May 11, over a hundred rockets were fired by Palestinian Hamas militants at Israeli cities of Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and Ashdod. Hostilities have escalated even further, as Israel responded with ramped up airstrikes on the coastal enclave when unrest spread to cities and towns beyond Jerusalem.
Eyewitnesses posted photos and videos of the shelling.
As both sides traded airstrikes on Tuesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the nation from Tel Aviv, saying, "We are in the midst of a significant operation."
On Wednesday, May 12, rockets were fired towards Tel Aviv, CNN reports. Sirens could be heard warning of an impending attack around 3 a.m. local time. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties. CNN reported at least 50 explosions in the coastal town near Gaza, and rocket fire was also reported in the city of Ashdod. At least 17 Israeli civilians have been treated for injuries from rocket attacks, the military said.
On Wednesday, Israel declared a state of emergency in the central city of Lod and dispatched border police battalions to the area for reinforcements, according to the Government Press Office. The mixed Jewish-Arab city has seen protests escalate into riots this week.
It's worth noting that in the past two days, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza have fired at least 500 rockets into Israel, forcing the closure of Israel's main international airport, Ben Gurion, about fifteen kilometers east of Tel Aviv. The militants say it is a response to the actions of Israeli police who fired stun grenades inside the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem -- one of the city's holiest sites -- on Monday morning. The number of deaths is horrifying and there are no signs of de-escalation.
The United States and European Union called for a de-escalation of violence while several countries in the Middle East, including Turkey, condemned the Israeli police response to tensions in Jerusalem. On Tuesday, UN human rights experts expressed "grave concerns about Israel's aggressive response to protests in East Jerusalem, and called on Israel, as an occupying power, to immediately lift its threat to evict hundreds of Palestinian households from their legally protected homes."