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| Israel masses troops on Gaza border as conflict escalates |
israel says it's massing troops on the
border with
gaza and calling up thousands of reservists
ahead of a possible ground invasion of the hamas ruled territory
overnight the israeli air force stepped
up strikes on gaza as hamas launched
hundreds of rockets far into israel
this comes amid renewed mob violence
between arab and jewish neighbors in
israeli cities and the death toll
in this conflict is rising plumes of smoke over gaza on the ground residents picked through the destruction caused by days of israeli air strikes palestinians in gaza spent the muslim holiday of eid under bombardment here amongst the rubble
there is little to celebrate [Music] the israel defense force bombs what it says is
a military compound belonging to the palestinian
militant group hamas in gaza it's
retaliation for rockets fired at israel the conflict between israel and hamas is escalating
the idf has already attacked hundreds of
targets and we continue to strike
hamas whilst defending our citizens it will take more time but with both defending and attacking we will restore peace to israel the air raid siren sound yet again israeli's run for cover this time israel's aerial missile defense system intercepted a missile but other rockets have cracked the so-called iron dome and the reach of hamas seems to be extending further and further into israel
this is a neighborhood just 10 kilometers
east of tel aviv in heavily populated
central israel [Music] as hamas launches more rockets from gaza negotiators from egypt held talks with both sides to try and find a truce egyptian qatari and international mediators are talking with the resistance hamas and the israeli occupation
but every time they make an effort to
create a situation which allows the
aggression to stop a new israeli
decision to destroy towers and kill
children the elderly and women stifles
these efforts and in gaza as night falls
weary residents are fleeing their homes
as a new round of shelling hits the city
let's bring in our jerusalem correspondent
here tanya kramer tanya dramatic
developments there in the past 24 hours
how are things looking there this
morning well absolutely uh overnight
there were massive uh strikes by the israeli air force the naval and
artillery mainly in the northern part of
gaza the army says that 160
planes were involved in those strikes
and bombardments and they say the targets were mainly underground tunnels a tunnel system that is used by hamas and islamic jihad inside gaza now this has of course caused immense devastation and hardship for the residents in this area which were reportedly not being warned of this bombing campaign
according to the army again 55 rockets
were fired from gaza into israel
overnight there were no rockets overnight
fired into central israel and also in a
parallel development there were new violence renewed violence and also riots and protests
and confrontations between far-right
jewish extremists and people from the
arab-israeli community in those mixed
towns across israel that we've seen
overnight now israel is making no secret of the fact that it is massing troops at the gaza border is a ground offensive imminent tanya well
we know that there are preparations and we understand from the army that plans are being drafted but at the moment we get a sense that the campaign
is mainly focused on the the air force naval and artillery from outside of gaza there had been reports overnight based on a tweet that came out from the military spokesperson's office that had created some confusion but the
military confirmed this morning there
are no ground troops in gaza at the
moment what about efforts to end this
fighting tanya how much hope is there for diplomacy here while on an international level diplomacy seems to move or appears to move rather slow we understand that now a u.n security council meeting has been scheduled for a sunday but i think the focus as we also heard in the report is on regional
efforts and in previous rounds of
hostilities or during the wars egypt
qatar and the united nations have played
a role in mediating uh between the
warring factions but we also have heard
again from the israeli prime minister
benjamin netanyahu last night in a
statement that the operation would take
as long as necessary so at the moment we
have no indication uh when those mediation mediation efforts will see any results tonya thank you so much dw's jerusalem correspondent tanya kramer well for more on the humanitarian situation in gaza let's bring in matthias
mala he's gaza director of the un relief
and works agency responsible for
the welfare of palestine refugees he
joins us from gaza city thanks for being
with us mr smaller give us a sense of
the humanitarian situation in gaza right
now good morning to you terry and thank
you for giving me this opportunity to talk about that the situation
is a mixture of things there is despair
yesterday was the first day of eid after
ramadan and i think people are in
despair that they cannot celebrate
this religious festivity that is so
important there is people
terrified after three days and three
nights of intense rockets from here but
intense bombarding into gaza people are terrified and that's one reason why they're on the move there are there are rise there's a rising human cost among the people killed as you mentioned at the beginning there are eight children that went to our unra un schools
and then there's homelessness people are
on the move we have the reports
i'm getting this morning is that there
are 16 schools of our schools where
people are seeking shelter in one school
tooth more than 2 000 people so the despair and humanitarian needs are growing your agency ordered staff to stay home i understand from its from its clinics in order to keep them safe how
are you assisting civilians in this situation so we were able to provide primary health care through our 22 health centers on the first day but then on the second day my chief of health a fantastic palestinian doctor dr radha
she was the one who called me early in
the morning and said this is too hot as
she put it this is too dangerous we have
to today at least keep the health
centers closed this is coming from a
woman who is very proud to say in 2014
we didn't shut one day so it gives you a sense of the seriousness back to your question we've kept our sanitation services open yesterday because of the eid holiday everything was going to stop anyway today we've resumed sanitation so cleaning in the eight camps and tomorrow we hope that the situation will facilitate
primary health care the next big
challenge is to support people in our in our schools who are seeking shelter so we will do what we can to provide support the most basic support to the internally displaced gaza is under bombardment it's in the middle of a pandemic how are hospitals in gaza coping at this point um
barely is my understanding i haven't been in the last two three days for obvious reasons my the reports i'm getting is they're barely coping fortunately the devastating second wave of the covet pandemic
was starting to ease off so they were
under pressure but it was starting to be
manageable so far my
understanding is they can cope with the
casualty casualties and injured but of
course if this continued if there were a
ground offensive the hospitals would very very soon reach maximum capacity and that would be a serious humanitarian problem i understand that water is a concern clean water sanitation facilities in gaza there's
concern about the fuel supply electricity what do civilians in gaza need most at this point
well you know to be honest what they
need most is for the fighting to stop
of course but that's a given and what is
needed most is to make sure they
have their basic food needs covered for
the moment there seems to be enough food
in the markets but of course if people
flee their homes as they have started
doing since yesterday and are in
shelters or with relatives food needs
will increase you mentioned water at the
best of times there is not enough safe water supply so water will
very quickly become a huge issue and
then let me say finally that beyond the
basic needs food and non-food
items there will be mental health needs
you know we've we are in 14 years of blockade we've had the great marches of return we've had covet and now this
mental health needs are increasing and
we should not lose sight of that including if there are thousands of people in shelters there's bound to be gender-based violence pressure on children so we must also from the beginning think about and address the mental health of people and well-being
thank you for taking time to talk with
us today that was mathiasmala gaza
director of the un relief and works
agency responsible for the welfare
of palestine refugees thank you within israel the conflict is fueling confrontations in some communities as mobs and arabs of and jews confront each other on the streets simmering tensions in several mixed cities are boiling over into violence
a brutal attack on the streets of
baatyam a group of far-right israelis
pull an arab man out of his car and
beat him [Music] [Applause]
mob attacks as well in the city of lud
this surveillance footage shows palestinian
youths attacking an orthodox jew elsewhere clashes erupted between arabs and israeli police the violence is fueling fears that israel could be headed for civil war jews and arabs who live side by side in israel's so-called mixed cities are deeply concerned we need to live here together coexistence we need to be partners to each other
this airborned ice cream store in batyam
was vandalized by a right-wing jewish
mob its owner says she was
shocked by the violence most of my customers are arabs or jews we've been mixed together this whole time i
never felt like there was something wrong
they used to come up and try to talk to
me in arabic it was normal i never felt
anything wrong in these towns are just hoping the unrest will end soon we are all israelis arabs jews we are israelis they are wonderful and it's just so heartbreaking what happened
and may it never happen again but an end
to this conflict on israel's streets
appears a long way off the prime
minister has warned that violence is
likely to increase in the coming days well tensions from the israeli-palestinian conflict have spilled over to cities around the world including here in germany there have been renewed protests against israel's military operations in several german cities with over 1500 people gathering in the northern city of bremen and there have also been anti-semitic incidents of vandalism targeting jewish places of worship police arrested more than a dozen men suspected of damaging a synagogue in bonn and
starting a fire at a jewish memorial
site on dusseldorf germany's
jewish community is calling for more
protection at jewish institutions you
Israel masses troops on Gaza border as conflict escalates