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Israel and Hamas trade attacks after Biden expresses support for cease-fire

Alexander Smith and Saphora Smith and Lawahez Jabari and Paul Goldman and Wajjeh Abu Zarefah
·5 min read
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Dozens of Israeli jets launched more than 100 missiles into the Gaza Strip overnight as the fighting entered its second week and hours after President Joe Biden said he would support a cease-fire in the conflict.

The Israeli military said that the 110 guided missiles launched from 62 fighter jets had targeted the "metro," a network of tunnels used by Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza.

At least 212 people, including 61 children, have been killed by the Israeli airstrikes over the past week, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Fifteen Palestinians have been killed in clashes in the occupied West Bank.

During that time, Hamas has launched some 3,440 rockets from Gaza into Israel, killing 12 people, including two children, officials there said.

Israeli authorities said Tuesday that a decision had been made to stop trucks carrying aid from entering the blockaded Gaza Strip, after a mortar bomb hit a border crossing and other bombs were fired at a separate border junction as trucks entered the enclave.

The trucks contained medical equipment, animal feed and fuel tanks for use by international organizations in Gaza, according to officials.

Image: A six-story building n Gaza City that was destroyed by an early morning Israeli airstrike (Khalil Hamra / AP)
Image: A six-story building n Gaza City that was destroyed by an early morning Israeli airstrike (Khalil Hamra / AP)

The toll on civilians in Gaza has been high.

As well as the deaths and injuries, some 2,500 people have been left homeless after at least 90 buildings including hundreds of housing units have been destroyed, according to a statement Monday by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Schools and hospitals have been damaged, the agency said, including those run by international organizations such as Doctors Without Borders. One high-rise building destroyed by Israeli jets housed The Associated Press and the Al Jazeera news organizations.

"We are in war, we have entered a seventh day of war," Matthias Schmale, director of operations at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said in an interview. "The population is terrified, they've started moving from their homes because they no longer feel safe."

He added that "no place in Gaza is safe."

A spokeswoman for the Israeli police said Tuesday that the service had received a report that a rocket had struck the Eshkol region, which borders Egypt and the Gaza Strip, causing a number of casualties.

The Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom reported that a rocket had killed two people and injured seven, one severely, in the region.

Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system intercepts an estimated 90 percent of rockets fired by Hamas. The rockets that have broken through have lit up the skies over cities such as Tel Aviv and caused people to flee into underground bomb shelters.

Meanwhile, unrest has spread outside Gaza.

The Israeli Defense Forces said Tuesday that a number of rioters in the Ramallah district of the West Bank fired at Israeli troops. Two soldiers were taken to hospital with leg injuries, it added.

Though Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday that he supported a cease-fire, he has so far resisted pressure, much of it from within his own Democratic Party, to criticize Israel's actions.

The U.S. earlier blocked a statement by the United Nations Security Council that called for an end to "the crisis related to Gaza" and for the protection of civilians.

Image: EIsraeli airstrikes light up the night sky above Gaza City (Mahmud Hams / AFP - Getty Images)
Image: EIsraeli airstrikes light up the night sky above Gaza City (Mahmud Hams / AFP - Getty Images)

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz thanked the Biden administration "for rightly preventing the unjust U.N. Security Council statement criticizing Israel's actions in Gaza."

He said Israel's sole aim was "to dismantle terror infrastructure and protect our people. This criticism of Israel is hypocritical and detrimental to the global fight against terror."

The U.S. gives Israel $3.8 billion a year in military aid, equivalent to 20 percent of Israel’s defense budget and nearly three-fifths of U.S. foreign military financing globally.

Long-running tensions reignited last week after Israeli police raided Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound while Palestinian worshippers were praying there during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Hamas responded by firing rockets into Israel, which has replied with its own bombing campaign.

On Tuesday, Israel said it struck "a number of rocket launching sites" that were aimed at Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and other cities. As well as the metro tunnel system, Israel said it hit the homes of several Hamas commanders, as well as a Hamas anti-tank squad and other infrastructure related to the militant group.

Netanyahu told Israelis on Sunday that they should be ready for an extended military campaign.

The Israeli military says it tries to minimize civilian injuries and deaths, and accuses Hamas of using people as human shields.

But people in Gaza are scared.

Amani al Shawarbgee, 43, a teacher in Gaza, said in an interview Monday that she was forced to leave to find shelter elsewhere when a bomb exploded by her house.

“We left because our windows [were] broken and fire entered our house,” she said.

Shawarbgee said the hopelessness of life in Gaza makes her students angry and despondent.

When she encourages them to learn, she said they tell her “learn to be what, if we die there is no need for our education.”

“They feel there is no future,” she said.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said Tuesday that 11 of the children killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza over the last week were participating in its psycho-social program aimed at helping them deal with trauma.

All of the children, between 5 and 15 years old, were killed in their homes in densely populated areas, the group added.

Image: Palestinian children, who fled their homes amid Israeli airstrikes, take refuge at a United Nations-run school in Gaza City (Suhaib Salem / Reuters)
Image: Palestinian children, who fled their homes amid Israeli airstrikes, take refuge at a United Nations-run school in Gaza City (Suhaib Salem / Reuters)

On Tuesday, Palestinians in Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank observed a general strike to protest what activists and human rights groups say is a system of apartheid, of which the latest Gaza conflict is only one manifestation.

Israel adamantly rejects that characterization and accuses Hamas of inciting violence across the region.

Alexander Smith and Saphora Smith reported from London, and Paul Goldman and Lawahez Jabari reported from Tel Aviv. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Netanyahu’s close alliance with Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, only deepened that partisan divide. But the difference in tone also reflects a broader shift among the Democratic Party over the past decade. As Democratic voters and liberals have become more self-consciously organized around concepts like equity and systemic discrimination, their push for more liberal policy positions on immigration, policing and gun violence at home has reshaped the way many view the conflict in the Middle East and the violence it has produced. Reflexive support for Israel’s right to defend itself or calls for Israel and Palestinian authorities to return to the negotiating table are now viewed by many on the left as “the linguistic equivalent of ‘our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of the latest mass shooting,’” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel advocacy group that has worked for years to shift the debate as a counterweight to AIPAC. “That’s no longer good enough,” he said in an interview. “What the United States is doing essentially amounts to international immunity to Israel.” The dynamic was on display last week after Ocasio-Cortez pounced on Andrew Yang, the leading candidate in the New York City mayoral race, for issuing a statement last week “standing with the people of Israel.” “Utterly shameful for Yang to try to show up to an Eid event after sending out a chest-thumping statement of support for a strike killing 9 children,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. (Yang later released a new statement saying that his first was “overly simplistic” and “failed to acknowledge the pain and suffering on both sides.”) That has left some of Israel’s most vocal traditional allies in the party in an awkward position. Mindful of the crosscurrents in his party and home state, where he faces reelection next year, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, has been largely silent since the fighting broke out. Like Menendez, Schumer voted against the Iran nuclear deal, and he represents the largest Jewish population in the country, ranging from secular progressives to politically conservative Orthodox communities. In response to a question asked by a reporter at the Capitol on Monday, Schumer said, “I want to see a cease-fire reached quickly, and mourn the loss of life.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company

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