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The worst violence in years between Israelis and Palestinians showed no signs of letting up Wednesday, as continued Israeli airstrikes and Hamas rocket fire prompted the United Nations to warn the conflict could mushroom into “full-scale war.”
Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza has now killed at least 56 people, including 14 children, and injured more than 335 more, according to the Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry. Israel says at least 15 of the dead were Hamas militants.
“Stop the fire immediately. We’re escalating towards a full-scale war,” tweeted UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland. “The cost of war in Gaza is devastating & is being paid by ordinary people. UN is working w/ all sides to restore calm. Stop the violence now.”
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Israeli police officers clash with Palestinian protesters near Damascus Gate just outside Jerusalem s Old City on May 9, 2021. (AP/Ariel Schalit)
NEW YORK The UN Security Council will convene an emergency session on Monday morning to discuss the escalating violence in Jerusalem, including major clashes on the Temple Mount.
The session will be held hours before a scheduled annual march of thousands of Jewish nationalists through the Old City in what some security officials fear may cause the situation, already tense over the impending eviction of four Palestinian families from an East Jerusalem neighborhood, to boil over.
The closed-door session will convene following a request from Tunisia, three security council diplomats told The Times of Israel. Such unscheduled meetings are not entirely rare, and the 15-member body has met under such circumstances several times this year to discuss escalations in Myanmar and Ethiopia.
UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland said that he understood the “disappointment of the many Palestinians” who had gone nearly 16 years without being able to cast their vote.
Egypt, Jordan ask Israel to stop escalation in Jerusalem April 26, 2021
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.
CAIRO Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Jordanian Foreign and Expatriates Affairs Minister Ayman Al-Safadi on Sunday asked Israel to stop all acts of aggression and provocation against Palestinians in the occupied East Jerusalem.
They condemned in particular Israeli extremists violent actions and harassment of Palestinians in Jerusalem s old city, according to a statement issued by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry late Sunday following a phone call between the two ministers.
They called on Israel to abide by international law as well as to protect and allow Palestinians to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
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A ball of fire and smoke rises during Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on April 17, 2021. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
Israel has reportedly sent a message to the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip, warning that if rocket fire from the enclave continues it will draw a major military response.
Over the past three nights, terrorists in the Strip fired some 45 rockets at southern Israel, causing damage in several Israeli communities near the border. In response, the Israel Defense Forces conducted a limited number of airstrikes on sites controlled by Hamas, which rules the enclave, and barred Palestinians from fishing off the Gaza coast.