Strike from Gaza kills two as Israel topples 6-story building, says report

A strike launched from Gaza killed two Thai workers in southern Israel on Tuesday, police said, hours after Israeli airstrikes toppled a six-story building in the Palestinian territory that housed bookstores and educational centers. With the war showing no sign of abating, Palest­inians across the region went on a general strike in a rare collective action against Israel’s policies.

Violence erupted at protests in the occupied West Bank, including at one in the city of Ramallah. Hundreds of Palestinians burned tires and hurled stones toward an Israeli military checkpoint. Troops fired tear gas canisters at the crowd and protesters picked up some of them and threw them back. One protester was killed and more than 70 others wounded — including 16 by live fire — in clashes with Israeli troops in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and other cities, according to the Palestin­ian Health Ministry.

The Israeli army said two soldiers were wounded by gunshots to the leg.

The general strike was an uncommon show of unity among Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20 per cent of its population, and those in the territories Israel seized in 1967 that the Palestinians have long sought for a future state. It threatened to further widen the conflict after a spasm of communal violence in Israel and protests across the West Bank last week.

Over 58,000 Palestinians displaced in Gaza, says UN

More than 58,000 Palestinians have been displaced by Israeli air strikes that have destroyed or badly damaged nearly 450 buildings in the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. According to Al Jazeera, about 47,000 of the displaced people have sought shelter in 58 UN-run schools in Gaza, Jens Laerke, OCHA spokesman, told reporters. Laerke also said 132 buildings had been destroyed and 316 had been severely damaged, including six hospitals and nine primary healthcare centres.

In a rare joint action, millions of Palestinians join General Strike

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel downed tools for the day on Tuesday, as did workers across the occupied West Bank and in Gaza, protesting violence against Arab Israelis, the unfolding Israeli military campaign targeting Hamas militants in Gaza and the looming eviction of several families from their homes in East Jerusalem. Streets were deserted in Arab areas across both Israel and the occupied territories, as shopkeepers shuttered stores along the waterfront in Jaffa, central Israel; the steep roads of Umm el-Fahm, an Arab town in northern Israel; and West Bank cities such as Hebron, Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah. NYT

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