A fireball erupts following an Israeli air strike on a building in Gaza City
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired rockets at Jerusalem Sunday for the first time since conflict escalated, as Israel bombarded Islamic Jihad positions for a third day in violence that has left 29 dead.
The updated count from health authorities in the Islamist-run enclave said six children were among those killed since the start of the “Israeli aggression” on Friday, in addition to 253 people injured.
The Israeli army has said the entire “senior leadership of the military wing of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been neutralised”, and Prime Minister Yair Lapid vowed Sunday that “the operation will continue as long as necessary”.
Israel said it had “irrefutable” evidence that a stray rocket from Islamic Jihad militants had been responsible for the deaths of multiple children in Jabalia, northern Gaza, on Saturday.
In Jerusalem AFP reporters heard two explosions as rockets were intercepted in the air.
Jews on Sunday mark the Tisha Be’av remembrance day by visiting the Al Aqsa mosque compound, known in Judaism as the Temple Mount, in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem.
Israel’s military has warned its latest aerial and artillery campaign against Islamic Jihad could last a week, but Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Cairo was talking “around the clock” with both sides to ease the violence.
The head of the army’s operations directorate, Oded Basiok, said the entire “senior leadership of the military wing of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been neutralised” by Israel’s campaign.
Read the article in the Herald Sun and NT News (AFP).