Israel-Gaza (Planes diverted amid rocket threat)
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violence between israelis and palestinians is worsening hamas has launched
another barrage of rockets deep into israel while israeli airstrikes are
raining down in gaza these are live pictures from gaza city where we know more
buildings have been struck and at least 83 palestinians are reported to have
died seven people have died in israel while the bbc's paul adams is in jerusalem
paul as we can see from these pictures knight has fallen but i assume the fighting
hasn't stopped well i haven't had any reports of uh rocket attacks into israel
for a little while in fact i don't think there have been any casualties from
rocket attacks into israel today although there were salvos earlier in the day i
think most of those were intercepted by israel's iron dome missile defense system
airstrikes have continued at various times during the day in gaza with the
israelis still talking about having a wide array of hamas targets that they
want to hit i think there's a really concerted feeling uh in the israeli
military that they want to inflict as much damage as they can on hamas uh
before this conflict is over uh so and and you mentioned in your introduction
there the possibility of a ground operation we have seen some signs of troops
massing on the border that could mark the prelude to something uh like a ground
operation and if it does happen then it could be a rerun of what we saw in 2014
when it wasn't just scores of people who were killed but thousands of people who
were killed and i think that's something that the israelis are going to think
pretty seriously about before pulling the trigger on an operation of that kind paul
is anyone on either side doing anything to try and de-escalate this not
obviously no i mean there is a bit of diplomacy in the wind uh joe biden is
sending a middle east envoy uh to to come and discuss uh the situation we know
that there are efforts going on behind the scenes which we're not really privy
to involving egypt and qatar and the kinds of players who often do get involved
in negotiations between israel and hamas we don't know what progress if any they're
making but all the rhetoric at the moment suggests that both sides are in this
for if not the long haul then certainly in it for some time yet paul thank you very
much indeed this paul adams live with us from jerusalem while this conflict has
taken another dangerous turn because violence has broken out between jews and
israeli arabs in some of the worst clashes we've seen for years videos of
attacks by jewish and israeli arab mobs are being widely shared one attack was
caught on tv before we see it a warning this is shocking we're seeing jewish israelis
attacking a driver in batyam which is a coastal city south of tel aviv according
to local media they first attacked arab-owned property before turning on the
driver these next pictures of the incident are also distressing this is before
the group attack as you can see the driver is reversing from crowds he's
stopped by another car then he drives towards them and stops and then is pulled
from his car and beaten the crowds here say the man was trying to ram them but that's
disputed then we have these pictures from the town of acre this israeli
restaurant was destroyed in riots between arabs and jews one jewish man is
reportedly in a serious condition after being attacked with sticks and rocks
well israel's president reuven rivlin described the outbreaks of rioting as senseless
civil war and this is israel's prime minister this is anarchy nothing can
justify it and i will tell you more than that nothing can justify a lynching of
jews by arabs and nothing can justify a lynching of arabs by jews we will not
accept this this is not us not this violence not this savagery we will bring
back governance to israel cities everywhere in all cities well an arab israeli
member of parliament had different words to describe what's happening aydah too
muslim has told the bbc that benjamin netanyahu is stoking violence for
personal reasons have a listen there is a political intention by the prime minister
netanyahu and his ministers to escalate the situation more and more if the
debate in israel and the discussion and the tension till last month was between
bibi's camp and the anti-benjamin netanyahu's camp they wanted to divert it
into a kind of a war a citizen's war between jews and arabs if those organized
groups with weapon are still going to continue like this i'm so afraid that we
can lose control on the situation and it can become something really bad now
we've seen violence in the center of the city of lod where a state of emergency
is in place our correspondent jolan nell is there all around you've got scenes
like this honestly it looks like a war zones you've got burnt out cars curb
stones have been ripped up in all the rioting that has taken place and there
are scorched buildings just along the streets here a jewish school was set on
fire next to the synagogue and now there's a lot of police all around on the
street corners residents are very nervous i spoke to one jewish mother she told
me that she'd always known there were tensions here but she felt they were very
much under the surface under control but when you speak to some of the arab
residents palestinian citizens of israel they say that they have known there
was this anger under the surface ready to erupt at any time they've long felt
like there was discrimination against them that they were second-class citizens
of israel and at the same time as all of this is playing out locally we've had
reminders of the conflict that's still going on between israel and militants in
gaza with rockets fired from the gaza strip and that just made loud explosions
over our heads now let's emphasize some important context here during the war
surrounding the creation of israel in 1948 hundreds of thousands of arabs were forced
from or fled their homes those who stayed in what became israel and their
ancestors have been granted israeli citizenship and are known as israeli arabs currently
there are 100 close to 2 million israeli arabs 80 of them are muslim and the
rest identify as either christian or druze and most israeli arabs identify
strongly with palestinians in gaza and in the occupied west bank and call
themselves palestinian citizens of israel well amnon bararei sulit ziyar nanis
is the ceo of the abraham initiatives it's a group promoting integration and
equality for jewish and arab israeli citizens these are his concerns bottom
line is that we are extremely extremely worried all of those who are worried
about the integrity of israeli society and coexistence between the jewish
majority and palestinian minority within israel there are 20 israeli citizens
who are palestinians and everything seems to fall apart there are thousands and
thousands of meeting points between jews and arabs within israel in
universities and colleges in shopping centers in workplaces ngos government
ministries and those contact points are becoming very dangerous there are
confrontations hostilities uh actions of lynch coming from one community
towards another and this is very uh very stressful uh the feeling is that we
are deteriorating into a situation that reminds us all of the balkans uh years
ago that's very troubling well next we turn to gaza because there's no let up
in the conflict there either israel has intensified its bombardments it's now
hitting intelligence buildings and banks this airstrike struck this morning on
the first day of e that's the muslim festival that marks the end of ramadan the
devastation we're told was significant meanwhile hamas is continuing to fire rockets
from gaza into israel it's also using drones this is said to show hamas
militants preparing a suicide drone attack towards israel we should say this is
unverified footage released by the hamas war office so let up in the fighting
no let up in the rhetoric here's the prime minister again benjamin netanyahu the
defensive actions of iron dome batteries give a space to mount attacks the idf
has already attacked hundreds of targets we're continuing to strike hamas while
defending our citizens and this is a hamas spokesperson all palestinians have
resisted these atrocities this oppression but everyone have chosen his own way
to resist but they have already rejected these policies policies of the
israelis therefore again the key is very simple to withdraw the security forces
from the alaska compound and to stop ethnic cleansing of palestinian people
from that's it the aggressor is clear it is israel based on the international
law and based on yuan reports well israel has moved troops towards the gaza
border as it prepares for all eventualities and an escalation our correspondent
rushdie abu alof is in gaza and has this update today in the morning there was
a little bit of a brief calm we saw some people out and about in the streets i
saw some people going to the bakeries to stock up for the night but very
quickly the sound of rockets and the sound of airstrikes will push people again
to go back to their homes the people were shocked by the scale of the
destruction the scale of the a fire both from israel and from the militancy
group hamas here and they remind the people of the 2014 war and this is really
very worrying news for the people now this conflict has now been going for four
days we've been hearing from residents living in gaza and living in israel
first of all here's the experience of ahmed aronson he's in jaffa and has been
showing the bbc how he's keeping safe so this is the entrance to the mamad our apartment's
uh safe unit there is one door which is steel and is blast proof you can slide
it closed open and then there's another actual door the room as you can see has
an air filtration system in case you need to seal it and then there is a normal
looking window you can see the beautiful skyline of tel aviv but you can close
the shutter and then there is another shutter made from steel which is blast
proof and you have to close it and close the window so you have a triple layer
of protection inside the mamad the apartments protection the apartment safe
room and then this is ihab suleiman in northern gaza this area we uh right now
while i'm talking to you i can hear uh bombings and uh heavy bombings uh nearby
and around uh it's successive terrifying attacks um they're like sounds of
death every um everywhere we cannot have a blink of an eye we cannot sleep at
all because of the heavy bombings around um personally speaking for me i slept
at 7 00 am in the morning for less than an hour and this is what i could do for
my children things are horribly horrible children and kids like can never um
like bear this uh heavy bombing everywhere we just try to calm them down to
chill chill them out this is all we could do today is supposed to be the heat
for them the um we could say the best occasion for them uh instead of like
having uh smiles and um living beautiful times and keeping them as memories what's
happening right now in gaza is like murdering and killing and bombing and missiles
everywhere this creates a sense of like of horror inside every every child in gaza
well gaza is a strip of land bordering egypt israel and the mediterranean it's
only 360 kilometers square it's much poorer and smaller than the west bank the territory
is one of the most densely populated areas in the world 1.9 million people live
there 1.4 million of them are registered as refugees and hamas reinforced its
power in gaza in 2007 after it ousted its palestinian rival fatter since then israeli
sanctions on the strip have tightened there are restrictions on people's
movement goods and on fishing and there's no dispute that israel is the far
greater power here as hamas and israel face down here's the foreign affairs
analyst jonathan marcus well this is a totally asymmetric and imbalanced
struggle israel is a regional military power it has technology in many senses
equivalent to that of the united states and other highly developed countries so
we're seeing it using its air power uh largely fixed swing aircraft maybe
helicopters as well i don't know it obviously has very sophisticated
intelligence gathering capabilities it's built up a remarkable archive of
intelligence on the gaza strip i think that's clear from the fact that a number
of senior hamas commanders have been killed it believes that it is destroying weapon
stores and weapons factories and so on uh in terms of the of a balance of power
there simply is no balance israel is overwhelmingly the more powerful uh actor
here uh and whilst uh palestinian rockets can clearly cause deaths damage and
casualties inside israel the longer this struggle goes on it's going to get much
much worse the imbalance of casualties and we see that in balance and
casualties already and picking up on jonathan's points the disproportionate
number of palestinian deaths has been put to israel's defence spokesperson this
was his response hamas purposely embeds its military infrastructure within the
civilian population creating an almost impossible situation where they are
using palestinian civilians as their human shields while they fire a rocket
that rockets at our civilians but let me really again iterate we are careful
and mindful of civilian casualties in gaza and we are going out of our way to minimize
them we understand the situation and we don't want to hurt other people but
when all when it all comes down we have to defend ourselves we have to defend
our civilians and this kind of attacks we simply cannot tolerate them the
reality though is that casualties and deaths are rising and international
efforts to stem the violence both going into gaza and coming out of it are
being stepped up the u.s president joe biden is sending a special envoy who's
due in the region soon let's hear from the bbc's barbara usher in washington on
his role the envoy is the deputy assistant secretary for israeli and
palestinian affairs hadith he's very experienced he has up until now really
been working on the palestinian side to try to restore ties that were broken
under the trump administration so he knows the brief he knows the file very
well but he is a mid-level diplomat and what analysts here have pointed out is
that he doesn't really have the diplomatic heft to to try to change the
trajectory if those on the ground aren't interested in doing so unless perhaps
he's carrying a personal message from the president which may be the case
although we haven't been been told that is the case here the message has been
very much of strong support for israel's right to self-defense secretary
blinken has inserted language about palestinian human rights he's in certain
inserted calls for caution on the israeli side about civilian casualties but both
here and at the white house there has been a very strong statement that the
israelis have the right to self-defense and this is really in keeping with the
way administrations have responded to conflicts between israel and gaza past
administrations at least in the initial phases and that is where they're
standing right now you 
Israel-Gaza (Planes diverted amid rocket threat)
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