Israel killed more than two dozen Gazans during a series of airstrikes launched since sundown on Monday evening.
Israel’s latest strikes, which hit a high-rise home of a Hamas field commander and two border tunnels, occurred as Gaza militants fired more than 250 rockets toward Israel, according to the Associated Press.
Of the 26 people who died, 16 of them were militants and at least nine were children, Gazan health officials said. Seven of the deaths were of a single family, including three children, who died in an explosion, though it’s unclear if it was from an Israeli strike or a failed Gazan missile. An additional 122 people were wounded.
Two Israelis died while 10 others were injured amid the rocket fire.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the fighting could “continue for some time,” while Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters the military was in “the early stages” of planning strikes against targets they have planned to attack.
Conricus added that about one-third of the rockets Hamas launched fell short and landed in Gaza.
The Israeli army said a rocket landed directly on a seven-story apartment block in Ashkelon, a town on the border.
The two sides have experienced an increase in tension in recent days. Israel’s planned evictions of several Palestinian families living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem has been one of the root causes for the latest flare-up.
Monday’s airstrikes came hours after more than 305 Palestinians were injured during fighting at the Al-Aqsa mosque. The mosque is a sacred site for both Jews and Muslims.
At least 228 of the injured Palestinians required hospitalization, while seven were listed as being in serious condition. Twenty-one Israeli officers were hurt, and three needed to be hospitalized.
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After the clash, which followed a similar one that took place over the weekend, Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, said their rocket launches were in response to Israel’s “crimes and aggression” in Jerusalem.
“This is a message the enemy has to understand well,” he added.
