Where are attacks and clashes taking place in Israel and Gaza?
by 0 Attacks on Israel and Gaza have escalated, with dozens killed and many more injured on both sides.
The conflict has seen rocket attacks launched by Hamas and airstrikes by Israel since 10 May after weeks of friction between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem and the nearby neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Rockets launched from Gaza have been directed further into Israel than previous conflicts over the past decade.
The fighting has now expanded from the air to towns across Israel where Arabs and Israelis have lived alongside each other for decades.
Sky News has mapped out some of the main places being targeted.
Hamas rockets from Gaza into Israel
Hamas has been firing rockets at Israel since 10 May, with the Tel Aviv area, including Lod and Ramla, and the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Sderot all targeted.
In Sderot, which is just over the border from Gaza, a six-year-old boy was killed after a rocket hit an apartment building on Wednesday.
Air raid sirens and explosions have been echoing across cities as Israel’s missile defence system, Iron Dome, has been at times overwhelmed by the number of rockets.
By Wednesday afternoon, Hamas claimed to have fired 1,050 rockets into Israel and millions of Israelis had spent the night in bomb shelters.
Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
Fighter jets from Israel have mainly been targeting Gaza City and areas to the north but some southern areas have been hit as well in the crowded coastal enclave of two million people.
Previously, Israeli fighter jets have targeted specific people by sending a missile through their office or home window, but this time they have destroyed entire tower blocks.
There are no air raid sirens but residents have been warned by the Israeli military firing warning shots to evacuate the buildings before fighter jets attack. However, health officials said there were still civilian deaths.
Al Walid, a five-storey building in western Gaza city with flats, shops and the office of a Turkish charity, was destroyed by Israeli missiles on Thursday.
A 13-storey tower block, Al Farouk, was also destroyed by missiles in Gaza City after it was described as housing Hamas’s intelligence service.
Al Sharouk, a 14-storey building home to the offices of Hamas TV station Al Aqsa, was also levelled by Israeli missiles – prompting Hamas to fire 130 rockets at Israel, they said.
Hamas’s interior ministry building in Gaza City was also destroyed and although it was empty at the time, hospital officials said a woman was killed by flying debris and at least 46 others were injured.
The northern Gazan town of Beit Lahia was also hit badly, with charity worker Yousef Al Hammash saying there was no warning and that he had to flee with his pregnant wife and young daughter after his building was hit.
And in Gaza’s south, the Israeli military said it had hit a Hamas intelligence unit building in the town of Khan Younis. The bodies of an 11-year-old and 13-year-old were carried through Khan Younis’s streets on Wednesday.
Israel said it had killed senior Hamas officials in Gaza and was also targeting missile launching sites.
Protests and clashes in Israel’s ‘mixed’ towns
Areas where Arab Israelis, who identify as Arab or Palestinian and as Israeli citizens, have seen skirmishes between neighbours, with some dying and others badly injured.
Mobs of both nationalities battled in the city of Lod, which has become the epicentre of on-the-ground fighting, prompting a curfew to be imposed.
Israeli police said two people were shot and wounded in Lod and an Israeli Jew was stabbed.
In nearby Bat Yam, Jewish nationalists dragged an Arab driver from his car and beat him until he was unconscious.
A senior Israeli police officer said Arabs are suspected of attacking and seriously wounding a Jewish man in the coastal city of Acre as clashes broke out there on Wednesday.
