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Reuters
Israel launched an aerial offensive in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, bombing more than 30 targets including homes and calling it part of a campaign named "Operation Protective Edge" targeting Hamas Islamist militants firing rockets at the Jewish state.The military urged Israelis within a 40-km (24-mile) radius of the southern coastal territory to stay within reach of protected areas and ordered summer camps shut as a precaution against rocket fire.
Palestinian officials said Israel bombed more than 30 targets in little more than an hour before dawn, including two homes in southern Gaza, one of which was identified by a neighbour as belonging to a Hamas member.
Nine people suffered shrapnel injuries. There were no other reported casualties as the buildings were believed to have been evacuated beforehand.
Witnesses said a house bombed in Khan Younis was flattened. The Palestinian Health Ministry said nine neighbours were wounded by debris from that strike.
Al Jazeera America
The first weekend of July has reminded many Israelis and Palestinians of the beginnings of the second intifada in 2000: Protests have erupted in Palestinian neighborhoods both inside Israel and in the occupied territories, Jews attacked Palestinians in restaurants and on buses, Palestinians threw stones at Jewish cars, and reports of police violence have fanned the flames. Furthermore, after 48 hours without aerial attacks, Israeli planes bombed multiple sites in the Gaza Strip on Saturday night and more on Sunday, killing at least nine Palestinians, and for the first time since November 2012 Palestinian rockets were fired at the southern city of Be’er Sheva. And just like 14 years ago, all this came right after the collapse of a U.S.-led diplomatic effort.But even as anger mounts over the abductions and killings of three teenage Israeli settlers and of a 16-year-old Palestinian in East Jerusalem, there is one striking difference between the fateful days of October 2000 and today’s events: Casualties in the current escalation remain minimal compared with the heavy toll in early clashes of the second intifada. (Continued airstrikes in Gaza, of course, could quickly change that.)
Still, Israeli and Palestinian Authority security officials are hoping that the flames of fury will die down as angry Arab teens are summoned home to break the day’s Ramadan fast with their families and racist Israeli mobs are dispersed and distracted by the World Cup. They’re also expecting that Sunday’s reports that six Israeli youths were arrested on suspicion of involvement in Mohammed Abu Khdeir’s murder will further cool tempers.
Another key difference between now and 2000 is in the leadership on both sides of the divide: Unlike their predecessors Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, who failed to grasp the danger they were fomenting in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are both risk-averse leaders invested in the stability of the status quo.
Reuters
Israel called up reserve troops on Monday for a possible escalation of hostilities with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip where Hamas said six of its fighters were killed by air strikes, something Israel denied.Hamas vowed revenge for what it said were deadliest attacks in a surge of violence since the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli youths and a Palestinian teen.
Palestinian militants kept up their now-daily rocket launchings into Israel as pressure mounted from hardliners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition for tougher action against Hamas, the dominant force in the Gaza enclave.
The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted "terror sites and concealed rocket launchers" in the enclave, but had not hit the southern Gaza area of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where the Hamas gunmen died.
The Guardian
Three Israelis accused of kidnapping and burning to death a Palestinian teenager have reportedly confessed and re-enacted the murder for the authorities.The three are among six people arrested for the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir last week, which investigators believe was carried out as a revenge killing for the death of three Israeli teenagers.
The mother of one of those accused, however, denied his involvement, telling the Ynet website: "We're shattered and this thing is very difficult for us. My son has nothing to do with this and he will go free. This is crazy because he's only 16."
News of the reported confessions came as police struggled to contain five days of violent clashes in occupied east Jerusalem and in Arab towns across Israel that have plunged many areas into a toxic and fearful divide.
Tensions have been running high for weeks since the Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank.
BBC
Dozens of rockets have been fired at southern Israel after Hamas promised revenge for Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.The Palestinian Islamist movement said one Israeli strike near Rafah killed five of its fighters.
But the Israeli military said the men appeared to have died after handling explosives in a tunnel that had been hit on Thursday.
Tensions have risen since a Palestinian youth was killed in apparent reprisal for the murder of three Israelis.
An Israeli official said about 20 rockets were fired in just a few minutes on Monday night, adding that four had been destroyed by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.
There was no immediate word on casualties or damage in Israel.
Hamas released a statement saying it had "fired dozens of rockets" on several towns in central and southern Israel "in response to the Zionist aggression".