TEN Palestinians in the West Bank and a Lebanese protester on the Jewish state’s northern border were killed by Israeli fire yesterday , as demonstrators gathered to protest against the assault on the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had killed a Palestinian man who tried to mount a “stabbing attack” north of Ramallah, while the Palestinian health ministry said nine other Palestinians had been killed during protests across the West Bank, bringing the overall Palestinian death toll to 130.

On Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, the military used live fire and stun grenades on a group of Lebanese protesters who “sabotaged the [border] fence and set fire to it”. Lebanese media reported that two people were injured, with one person later dying of their wounds. According to Lebanon’s Hizbollah, he was a fighter with the militant group.

Meanwhile in Jordan, some 2,000 protesters headed to the West Bank-Jordan crossing chanting anti-Israel slogans. They were later dispersed by the Jordanian army.

The regional demonstrations were in response to a major barrage of air strikes, artillery fire and shelling on Gaza overnight by the Israeli military which the IDF said was an attempt to destroy a network of Hamas tunnels.

An IDF spokesman said the operation involved three ground brigades on the Israeli side of the border and 160 aircraft which dropped several hundred missiles on Hamas targets.

The IDF had claimed on Thursday night that its forces had also entered the Gaza Strip as part of an anticipated ground invasion but it later retracted this and admitted that no Israeli soldiers had entered the Palestinian enclave.

Palestinian officials said a woman and her three children were among 13 victims of the night-time Israeli bombardment of Gaza, and that their bodies were retrieved from the rubble of their home in Beit Lahia.

Among three families killed in the town of Beit Lahia were Lamya Al-Attar and her children – Islam (8), six-year-old Amira and Mohammed (10 months), according to Ali Hawas, media director for Gaza’s civil defence.

A video showed Lamya’s father arriving at a morgue to identify the bodies, which were stacked two abreast on metal trolleys in a refrigerator. Several medical facilities in the enclave had been damaged by air strikes, Mr Hawas said, including the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, a quarantine centre in Rafah, and a clinic in northern Gaza which was completely destroyed.

“It’s not over yet,” said Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.

“We will do everything to restore security to our city and to our citizens.”

The Israeli army says at least 30 commanders from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group, have been killed so far.

The heavy round of attacks on Gaza has raised the Palestinian death toll there to at least 130, including more than 30 children, while in Israel eight people have also been killed, among them a six-year-old boy.

At least 200 housing units and buildings were destroyed in the night-time Israeli attack and several hundred people have been forced to seek shelter in schools within Gaza, according to the United Nations humanitarian office.

It is understood that Egypt is leading efforts to broker a ceasefire but yesterday there were few signs that progress had been made.

The International Criminal Court has warned it may open a war crimes investigation based on the current violence.

As bombs and rockets rained down, clashes continued in mixed Arab-Jewish towns within Israel.

About 100 people were arrested after clashes on Thursday night in cities including Wadi Ara, Umm al Fahm, Beersheba and Netanya, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

In Netanya, police arrested nine Jewish Israelis who were “walking around looking to beat people up”, he said.

In Beersheba, 13 Arab residents were arrested. In Umm al Fahm, police arrested 11 people who “threw petrol bombs and attacked police officers”, Mr Rosenfeld said.

Police also arrested 43 people overnight in Lod, the scene of some of the worst communal violence and riots, for throwing petrol bombs and rocks and attacking police officers. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2021)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]