Israel-Gaza: Rocket pound Israel after militants killed
Hamas militants have launched dozens of rockets at Israel after Israeli air strikes killed senior commanders and felled a multi-storey building in Gaza.
The escalation of the fighting, which began on Monday, has prompted the UN to warn of a "full-scale war".
The conflict has also triggered a wave of street violence in Israel between Jews and Israeli Arabs. Political leaders have appealed for calm.
At least 67 people in Gaza and seven people in Israel have been killed.
The fighting erupted on Monday after weeks of rising Israeli-Palestinian tension in East Jerusalem which culminated in clashes at a holy site revered by Muslims and Jews.
For a second day, violence erupted in areas of Israel with mixed Jewish and Arab populations. More than 374 people were arrested and 36 officers were injured, Israeli police said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking late on Wednesday night, said he planned to send in military forces to help police maintain order in cities ruptured by violence.
Netanyahu said the attacks in recent days amounted to "anarchy".
"Nothing can justify an Arab mob assaulting Jews, and nothing can justify a Jewish mob assaulting Arabs," he said in a video statement, as reported by the Times of Israel.
Palestinian militants have been firing rockets into Israel since Monday night, and Israel has responded by hitting targets in the territory.
On Thursday morning, the IDF said about 1,500 rockets had been fired from Gaza into Israeli cities since hostilities escalated at the start of this week.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that more than 400 people have been injured there since the conflict began, in addition to the 67 who have died.
Netanyahu said the government would use all its strength to protect Israel from enemies on the outside and rioters on the inside.
But the Palestinian Authority condemned Israel's "military aggression" in a tweet, saying it was "traumatising an already beleaguered population of two million people".
Source: BBC
AH
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