Israel pounded Gaza on Saturday, destroying a tower block that housed news media organisations, while Palestinian rocket salvoes hit Tel Aviv with no sign of an end to almost a week of fighting. Palestinians say at least 140 people, including 39 children, have been killed in Gaza since the conflict erupted on Monday. Israel has reported 10 dead, including two children.
Israel’s military brought down a 12-storey block in Gaza City that housed the Associated Press and Qatar-based Al Jazeera media operations, as well as other offices and apartments.
Israel gave advance warning of the strike so it could be evacuated. The Israeli military said later the building was a legitimate military target because it contained military assets of Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza.
The strike was condemned by the AP and Al Jazeera. The United States told Israel “that ensuring the safety and security of journalists and independent media is a paramount responsibility,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
Biden holds talks with Netanyahu, Abbas
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US President Joe Biden in a phone call that Israel is doing everything to avoid harming non-combatants in its fighting with Hamas and other groups in Gaza.
Netanyahu said proof of this was that during recent Israeli strikes on multi-storey towers “in which terrorist targets were attacked by the IDF (military), the non-combatants were evacuated”, a summary of the phone call released by Netanyahu’s office said.
Biden also spoke directly with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, Abbas’ office said, the first time the two leaders have spoken since Biden took office in January.
Diplomacy has so far failed to quell the worst escalation in fighting between Israel and Palestinians since 2014. In Tel Aviv, residents fled for cover amid wailing sirens as Hamas militants fired barrages of rockets. One hit a residential block in the Ramat Gan suburb, killing a 50-year old man, medics said.
The group said the salvoes responded to overnight strikes on Gaza’s Beach refugee camp, where a woman and four of her children were killed when her house was hit. Five others died, medics said. Israel said it targeted an apartment used by Hamas.
Thousands rally to mark 1948 war ‘catastrophe’
Palestinians, who each year on May 15 mark the 73rd anniversary of the “Nakba” or Catastrophe Day, their displacement in the 1948-49 war that accompanied the creation of the modern state of Israel, clashed with police across the occupied West Bank on Saturday. Medics reported 29 Palestinians injured, 17 of them by live fire.
In London, several thousand protesters carrying placards reading “Stop Bombing Gaza” and chanting “Free Palestine” converged on Marble Arch, near the British capital’s Hyde Park, to march towards the Israeli embassy. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and southern provinces of Babylon, Dhi Qar, Diwanieh and Basrato stand in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and Jerusalem. In Paris, police officers used tear gas and water cannon to try and disperse a pro-Palestine rally.
