World

Rockets target Tel Aviv after Gaza tower destroyed

Published

3 years ago

May 12, 2021

Palestinian militants say they fired 130 missiles at the Israeli city of Tel Aviv after an Israeli air strike felled a tower block in the Gaza Strip.

The 13-storey building was attacked an hour and a half after residents and local people were warned to evacuate, Reuters news agency reports.

Israel’s military says it is targeting militants in Gaza in response to earlier rocket attacks.

At least 31 people have died in some of the worst violence in years.

The international community has urged both sides to end the escalation, which follows days of unrest in Jerusalem.

Militants had already fired hundreds of rockets towards Jerusalem and other areas.

Three people have been killed in Israeli areas while at least 28 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air strikes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier that the main militant group, Hamas, had “crossed a red line” by firing rockets towards Jerusalem for the first time in years.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, says it has been acting to defend Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque from Israeli “aggression and terrorism” after the site, which is holy to Muslims and Jews, saw clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians on Monday that left hundreds injured.

The past few days have seen the worst violence in Jerusalem since 2017. It followed mounting Palestinian anger over the threatened eviction of families from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem by Jewish settlers. Tension had already been stoked by a month of altercations between protesters and police in the predominantly Arab part of the city.