Palestinians fired uninterrupted barrages of rockets into Israel, as its military pounded Gaza with airstrikes through the early hours of Tuesday, in a dramatic escalation of clashes in Jerusalem.
Explosions shook buildings throughout Gaza and rocket sirens sent Israelis in many southern towns scurrying for shelter overnight. Two Palestinians were killed and more than 100 wounded in air strikes, Palestinian officials said.
Six Israelis were wounded by a rocket, medics said.
Nine children were among the 20 dead in Gaza on Monday and scores of rockets were launched into Israel, many that were intercepted by missile defenses.
The events were unleashed by people in Gaza firing on the Jerusalem area for the first time since a 2014 war, crossing what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “red line”.
The upsurge in violence came as Israel celebrated “Jerusalem Day”, marking its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The escalation began with confrontations at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the heart of the walled Old City on the compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary – the most sensitive site in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said more than 300 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police, who fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas in the compound. Police said 21 officers were hurt in the skirmishes.
Although the trouble died down after a few hours, there were other focal points of tension, such as the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem just north of the Old City, where several Palestinian families face eviction from homes claimed by Jewish settlers in a long-running legal case.
Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, set an evening cutoff time for Israel to eliminate its police from Al-Aqsa and Sheik Jarrah. At the point when it terminated, alarms cried in Jerusalem and rockets beat the city’s edges.
Israel sees all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern part attached after the 1967 conflict in a move that has not gotten global acknowledgment.
Palestinians need East Jerusalem for the capital of a state they look for in Gaza and the Israeli-involved West Bank.
Hamas and the more modest groups guaranteed obligation regarding the rocket fire on Jerusalem.
The Israeli military said it struck focuses on that included ‘aggressor’ agents, assault burrows and the home of a Hamas unit commandant.
Of the 20 Palestinians killed on Monday, seven, including three youngsters, were relatives who passed on in a blast in the town of Beit Hanoun, however it was hazy on the off chance that it had been cause by an Israeli strike or a Palestinian rocket that had missed the mark.
An Israeli military representative said about 33% of the Palestinian rockets terminated had missed the mark and caused harm and setbacks inside Gaza.
Worldwide endeavors to stem the brutality seemed to have as of now. A Palestinian authority revealed to Reuters that Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations, which have intervened ceasefires among Israel and Hamas previously, were in contact with the group’s chief Ismail Haniyeh.
Pressure had been working for quite a long time during the sacred month of Ramazan, in the midst of conflicts between Israeli security powers and Palestinian nonconformists inciting worldwide worry that occasions could winding crazy.
