Israeli jets and Palestinian militants have traded fresh airstrikes and rocket fire as the UN’s Middle East envoy warned of an escalation towards a full-scale war.
One person was killed and two injured after an anti-tank guided missile struck a vehicle patrolling near the border between Israel and Gaza on Wednesday morning. Mortar shells fired across the border hampered efforts by medical teams to reach the scene.
Hamas said it had carried out the attacks. Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry said the death toll in Gaza had reached 48, including 14 children, with more than 300 wounded. Six people in Israel have been killed.
In the worst descent into violence since a 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli military has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza and Palestinian militant groups have fired multiple rocket barrages at Israeli cities.
Israel’s Channel 12 said Egyptian mediators were trying to broker a ceasefire agreement. However, Benny Gantz, Israel’s defence minister, said military operations would continue.
“Israel is not preparing for a ceasefire. There is currently no end date for the operation. Only when we achieve complete quiet can we talk about calm,” he said. “We will not listen to moral preaching against our duty to protect the citizens of Israel.”
Jonathan Conricus, a spokesperson for the Israeli army, said he expected the fighting to intensify. Asked about a possible ceasefire, he said: “I don’t think my commanders are aware, or particularly interested.”
The UN envoy Tor Wennesland said leaders on all sides “have to take the responsibility of de-escalation” after a day of ferocious confrontations and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promising to intensify attacks on Gaza.
“The cost of war in Gaza is devastating and is being paid by ordinary people,” said Wennesland, who is expected to brief the 15 members of the UN security council on the crisis on Wednesday, its second such meeting in three days.
“Stop the fire immediately. We’re escalating towards a full-scale war,” he warned.
Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor at the international criminal court, said crimes may have been committed in the conflict. “I note with great concern the escalation of violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in and around Gaza, and the possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statute,” she said on Twitter.
In the latest violent exchanges early on Wednesday, sirens warning of incoming rocket fire blared in Tel Aviv and several explosions were heard, after Hamas said it had fired 110 rockets towards the coastal city in response to Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
In the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Lod, near Tel Aviv, a father and daughter were killed after a rocket hit a vehicle in the area. A state of emergency has been declared in the town.
At 4.30am, the Israel Defence Forces said in a statement that a number of “significant terror targets and terror operatives across the Gaza Strip” had been struck in response to “hundreds” of rockets.
Israeli aircraft also attacked another high-rise building in Gaza City. Five warning rockets were fired from a drone to alert people in the nine-storey block of the incoming bombing. Shortly afterwards, the jets struck the building again after journalists and rescuers gathered around.
The structure, which houses residential apartments, medical production companies and a dental clinic, was heavily damaged. There was no immediate word on casualties.
The overnight exchanges echoed violence hours earlier on Tuesday, when a 13-storey tower housing apartments and the offices of officials from Hamas was hit by an Israeli airstrike and collapsed. Residents had earlier been told to evacuate. In response, Hamas’s military wing said it had fired 130 rockets towards Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, and air raid sirens and then explosions were heard in the coastal city.
The White House has responded by saying its “primary focus” is de-escalation and that Joe Biden was being updated on the worsening situation. His spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said US officials were talking to their counterparts in the region.
“We believe Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measures of freedom, security, dignity and prosperity,” Psaki said. “US officials in recent weeks have spoken candidly with Israeli officials about how evictions of Palestinian families who have lived for years, sometimes decades, in their homes, and how demolitions of these homes, work against our common interests and achieving a solution to the conflict.”
The UN security council session on Wednesday is likely to be a test of the Biden administration’s position on an issue that it has sought to play down. On Tuesday, it blocked a UN security council statement calling for a ceasefire.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the international community should “give Israel a strong and deterrent lesson” over its conduct toward the Palestinians.
The two leaders talked by phone on Wednesday about the escalating confrontation, according to the Turkish presidential communications directorate. It added that Erdoğan had suggested an international protection force to shield the Palestinians.
In the UK, Boris Johnson urged Israel and Palestinian leaders to “step back from the brink”. Calling for both sides to show restraint, the prime minister said: “The UK is deeply concerned by the growing violence and civilian casualties and we want to see an urgent de-escalation of tensions.”
In recent weeks, there has been a sharp escalation in anger over Israel’s half-century occupation, its ever-deepening military grip over Palestinian life and a wave of evictions and demolitions. In Jerusalem, hundreds of Palestinians have been wounded in near-nightly protests that escalated over the weekend and spread to other areas of Israel and the occupied West Bank.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Haniyeh had said the rocket attacks would continue until Israel stopped “all scenes of terrorism and aggression in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa mosque”.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars, which were largely seen as failures for both sides, with Hamas still in power and Israel continuing to maintain a crippling blockade.