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At least 20 people were killed, including nine children and a senior Hamas commander, and 65 others were injured, Gaza officials said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Hamas has crossed the “red line” by firing rockets at Jerusalem and that the Jewish state “will respond by force.”
“We will not tolerate attacks on our territory, our capital, our citizens and our soldiers. Those who attack us will pay a high price,” Netanyahu said after meeting with army commanders and the head of the Shin Bet security service.
According to the Israeli armed forces, 150 missiles were fired from the Gaza Strip, dozens of which were absorbed by the Iron Dome air defense system. No casualties were reported.
The Israeli army said Tuesday it had hit 130 “military targets” in Gaza and killed 15 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters.
The sources told Hamas news agency AFP that one of its leaders, Mohammed Fayyad, had been killed.
Tensions in Jerusalem have risen since Israeli riot police clashes with Palestinian worshipers on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan turned into the worst riots in the city since 2017.
Since then, hundreds of Palestinians have been affected by nighttime riots near the Al Aqsa compound in annexed East Jerusalem. In response to these events, the international community called for a reduction in tensions and the states of the Muslim world strongly condemned the actions of the Jewish state.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the occupation of the city in 1967, but the majority of the international community does not recognize the move.
Diplomatic sources told AFP that Egypt and Qatar, which had mediated previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas, were trying to defuse tensions.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has strongly condemned the Hamas rocket attacks and stressed that “it must be stopped immediately.”
“All countries must fight for de-escalation, reduce tensions, take practical measures to calm the situation,” said the head of US diplomacy.
Sirens, evacuation
Earlier on Monday, Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, warned Israel to withdraw all its forces from the mosque complex and the Sheikh Jara district of East Jerusalem, where the impending eviction of Palestinian families sparked outrageous protests.
Sirens began to sound throughout Jerusalem at 3 p.m. In Greenwich Mean Time (6 p.m. Lithuania), immediately after the deadline set by Hamas, people, including Knesset lawmakers, fled to the city’s bunkers for first time since the 2014 Gaza conflict.
Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’s paramilitary wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades, said the attack was a response to Israel’s “crimes and aggression” in Jerusalem, including the “crackdown on Sheikh Jara and the Al Aqsa Mosque. “.
“This is a message the enemy must understand: if you respond, we will [irgi] we will respond; if you climb – we [irgi] we will climb ”, he emphasized.
A house in Beit Nekofa, about 10 km west of central Jerusalem, was also damaged by the rocket fire, AFP TV reported.
In addition, an Israeli Arab died of gunshot wounds in clashes with Israeli Jews in the central city of Lod, police said Monday, without providing further details.
Injured during clashes
Fears of further chaos in the Old City temporarily abated when the organizers of the march, who planned to commemorate the occupation of East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, canceled the event.
But then Hamas issued its warning, followed by a missile attack. In Jerusalem, people had to be evacuated from the Western Wall and other places.
On Monday night, as on previous nights since Friday, the Palestinians threw stones at Israeli officials, who in turn fired rubber bullets, launched incendiary grenades and tear gas.
This happened after the morning clashes, after which stones, deafening fragments of grenades and other debris were left on the ground.
Protesters were injured again on Monday. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, at least 395 Palestinians were injured and more than 200 were hospitalized. Five of them are in critical condition.
Sirajas (Siraj), 24, was transferred for surgery to a large hospital in Makashed after sustaining a spleen injury from a rubber bullet.
“They shot everyone, young and old,” he said.
Adnan Farhoud, general director of Makased Hospital, told AFP news agency that most of the people injured on Monday suffered head, chest and limb injuries.
When he “wants to hurt someone, shoot me in the head,” he said.
The Israeli police have reported 32 officers injured.
There have been major riots in the Old City of Jerusalem and elsewhere in recent days, with an Israeli court ruling that several Palestinian families must be evicted from Sheikh Jara, an annexed district of East Jerusalem.
However, the Justice Ministry postponed an impassioned Supreme Court hearing on the property dispute, scheduled for Monday.
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