Hostilities between Israel and Hamas escalated overnight, with 35 Palestinians killed in Gaza and three in Israel in the most intensive aerial exchanges in years.
Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes in Gaza into the early hours of Wednesday, as the Islamist group and other Palestinian militant groups fired multiple rocket barrages at Tel Aviv and Beersheba.
“This is just the beginning” of Israel’s strikes, Minister Benny Gantz warned.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh vowed that “if Israel wants to escalate, we are ready for it.”
The UN envoy for Middle East Peace, Tor Wennesland, warned that Israel and Hamas were “escalating towards a full-scale war”.
In the crowded, Israeli-blockaded enclave of Gaza that Hamas controls, 10 children and one woman were among those killed since Monday night.
A further 220 people were reported wounded from the ongoing Israeli air strikes, many rescued from the smouldering ruins of buildings.
In Israel, sirens sounded as Hamas rockets rained down, and some of those unable to make it to underground shelters took cover under bridges.
“It was scary,” said Haim Roy Ben Shlomo, 38, resident of Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, adding he had heard “several loud shots, or booms, above our heads.”
An Israeli woman was killed as rockets hit Rishon Letzion on the coastal city’s southern edge, while in nearby Holon, AFP footage showed a burnt-out bus as rescue workers cleaned up debris.
The rocket fire forced Israel to suspend flights at its main airport of Ben Gurion, near Tel Aviv.
