[News] Israel’s army drafts Gaza ground operation plan as mob violence escalates.

[S9OUL.]

 

Israel’s military is drafting a plan for a possible ground ground operation of Gaza, as it presses ahead with a fierce air offensive on the enclave and as Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza, fires volleys of rockets deep into Israel.

Meanwhile, racist mob attacks have continued to spread through Israel in the worst Arab-Jewish chaos for years. Overnight on Wednesday, far-right Jewish mobs took to the streets across the country searching for Arabs, while Palestinian citizens of Israel clashed with police, including reports of attempted shootings.

The attack plans, which are in their initial stages and have not been approved, will be presented to the military heads later on Thursday, who will consider whether to submit them to Israel’s government, an army spokesperson said.

Early on Thursday, thousands of Israelis went into shelters after warning sirens sounded in the economic capital Tel Aviv in the middle of the country, and also – for the first time since the unrest escalated this week – in Jezreel Valley in the north.

There was no immediate word of any casualties from the pre-dawn salvo, and later reports suggested the sirens in the north were false alarms.

The Israeli military has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza since Monday, killing four senior Hamas commanders and a dozen more Hamas operatives. Two high-rise buildings containing flats and offices in Gaza City were targeted.

At least 67 people have now been killed in Gaza, including 16 children, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Seven people have been killed in Israel, medical officials said, including a five-year-old boy killed by shrapnel on Wednesday in the frontier town of Sderot.

As the crisis continues to worsen, the US energy corporation Chevron said it had shut down the Tamar natural gas platform off the Israeli coast as a precaution. Israel said its energy needs would continue to be met.

At least two US airlines cancelled flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday and Thursday. Israel, which briefly suspended operations at Ben Gurion airport on Monday after a rocket barrage on Tel Aviv, said the national airline El Al stood ready to provide supplemental flights.

 

 

Thursday’s barrage on Tel Aviv prompted Israel to reroute an El Al flight from Brussels away from Ben Gurion, its intended destination, to Ramon airport in the south. It appeared to be the first time Israel had used Ramon as an alternative to Ben Gurion due to conflict. A flight was previously diverted there due to bad weather, according to the the Haaretz journalist Avi Scharf.

While the conflict raged, Israel appeared on the brink of losing control of its mixed cities.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has called on both Jews and Arabs to cease attacks on each other: “It doesn’t matter to me that your blood is boiling. You can’t take the law in your hands,” he said. However, Netanyahu previously pledged to restore order “with an iron fist if needed”, and his public security minister, Amir Ohana, has appeared to encourage mob violence.

On Wednesday, Ohana called for the release of a Jewish man arrested in connection with a fatal shooting of an Arab man in the city of Lod, after a synagogue and other Jewish property was torched.

Ohana alleged, without providing evidence, that the shooter “acted in self-defence”. He added that “law-abiding citizens carrying weapons” were an aid to authorities.

Later on Wednesday, a mob of far-right Israelis dragged a man they thought was an Arab from his car and beat him until he lay on the ground motionless and bloodied.

Footage of the attack in Bat Yam, a Tel Aviv suburb, was broadcast live on television but police and emergency services did not arrive on the scene until 15 minutes later, while the victim lay motionless on his back in the middle of the street.

Videos were posted on social media of what appeared to be other attempted lynchings overnight. Violent incidents, including the burning of shops and restaurants, were reported in multiple towns across Israel, including Acre, Haifa and Tiberias. Police arrested more than 400 people.

Earlier on Wednesday the US president, Joe Biden, spoke to Netanyahu and voiced hope the recent upsurge in violence centred on Gaza would soon end. “My expectation and hope is this will be closing down sooner than later, but Israel has a right to defend itself,” Biden said.

Biden did not explain the reasons behind his optimism. Netanyahu’s office said he told the US president that Israel would “continue acting to strike at the military capabilities of Hamas and the other terrorist groups active in the Gaza Strip”.

Amid reports that Egyptian mediators were attempting to broker a deal to end the fighting, Benny Gantz, the Israeli defence minister, said: “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.”

The US secretary of state, Tony Blinken, condemned the rocket attacks during a call with Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Wednesday, and emphasised the need to de-escalate tensions, the US state department said. Abbas is a Hamas rival whose authority is limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hady Amr, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for Israel and Palestinian affairs, is to travel to the region immediately to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders. A nominee for the empty post of US ambassador to Israel is to be made in the next few weeks, the White House said.

Since hostilities escalated on Monday evening, Hamas has fired about 1,500 rockets from Gaza into Israeli territory, according to the latest estimate by Israel’s army. The launch of about 350 rockets had failed, while hundreds more were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system, the army said.

The Israeli military said earlier it had killed four senior Hamas commanders in a “complex and first-of-its-kind operation” jointly with the Shin Bet security service. The dead included Bassem Issa, the Gaza City Brigade commander, the head of the cyber-command and the head of Hamas’s production network, said a security agency statement.

“We eliminated senior Hamas commanders and this is just the beginning,” Netanyahu said. “We will inflict blows on them that they couldn’t even dream of.” The Israeli military would use “increasing force”, he added.