By Jaime Ortega.
At least 22 Palestinians were killed Tuesday morning in a massive military operation against the Gaza Strip by Israel. There are over a hundred injured. The military struck 150 targets from the air and from warships that block sea access to the Palestinian region. It is the largest military operation in the area ruled by the Islamist Hamas since late 2012. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his troops to “be prepared” for a possible ground invasion of Gaza, which would be the first since the end , 2008. The Israeli executive on Tuesday authorized the mobilization of 40,000 reservists.
Israel, who baptized the attack as Operation Margin Protector enters a new phase between the recent hostilities with Hamas. The offense is, according to the Army, “an answer” to the more than 160 rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel on Monday. The air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem on Tuesday night, shortly before bouncing a loud explosion and a smaller one on southwest of the city.
Tel Aviv. A witness said that the air raid sirens interrupted the Peace Conference organized by the Daily Haaretz in the city. Alarms triggered in major Israeli cities suggest that Hamas was dusting off its powerful arsenal for this violent escalation. The Army requested that the population within a radius of up to 40 kilometers from the Gaza remain near bomb shelters.
The rocket attacks are the most dangerous for Israeli civilians. Yesterday Israel, started opening its doors in Jerusalem for people to access bomb shelters. According to military sources, the military attacked nearly 100 Palestinian rocket launchers. They also bombed military buildings and the infrastructure of Hamas, as well as the homes of several of his alleged militants.
Netanyahu asked the Army to “silk gloves until the problem is removed.” A military spokesman said the attacks had “reached” to various Islamist militants in their bombing. But, according to emergency services in the Gaza and hospital sources quoted by Reuters, the dead there are also seven children and 10 adult civilians.
The rest of the casualties are of Hamas or other militant Islamist groups including a local leader of the Islamic Jihad, who died on Tuesday night in an air raid on his home in which his parents were also killed with his two brothers. The armed wing of the organization announced a “widening of the attacks.” The Israeli army reported an attempted landing on the beach of Zikim, near Gaza, repelled by soldiers. Killed five militants and one Israeli was slightly injured. The skirmish allowed a spokesman for the military to speak of “attacks by land, sea and air.”
The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, called “immediate cancellation of the attacks on Gaza.” The Israeli defense minister, Moshe Yaalon warned however that the military operation “will not end in a matter of days.” The Israeli military yesterday highlighted two brigades of infantry in the vicinity of the Strip. Netanyahu said he ordered “a long, continuous and powerful operation” in Gaza. He acknowledged that the transaction “could be of prolonged” time, yet undetermined. He argues that it is directed against Hamas and will serve to stop the rocket fire against its territory.
Only left Gaza on Monday 165 different caliber projectiles and scope. Islamists, meanwhile, threatened to bomb Tel Aviv and its vicinity with more powerful missiles provided by Iran, or militias in Syria.
Tensions grow Israel and the Palestinian border since June 12 when three young students of Jewish religion disappeared in the West Bank. The discovery of their bodies off a wave of consternation among the Israelis, who were buried on Tuesday in a mass ceremony. Hours later, they began a series of public disorder and attacks on Palestinian residents in Jerusalem, culminating that evening with the murder of a young man who, according to the Palestinian authorities, was burned alive. Israel arrested six Jewish right-wing for the crime. Immediately after the killing began massive Palestinian protested in Jerusalem.
