Israel steps up attacks on Palestine, Biden summons Netanyahu: expects truce “for today”

As negotiations for a truce in the new chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine continue unsuccessfully, the IDF has redoubled aerial artillery attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Intelligence reports revealed that there are believed to be over 12,000 rockets and mortars targeting cities like Tel Aviv.

Double front in Israel: rockets from Lebanon, Palestinians hit mixed towns

This is why Israel has now extended its bombardments to more targets in Gaza to curb continued Hamas launches. While some local media speak of a ceasefire from this Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he expects calm to return ‘swiftly’ even if nor did he rule out a possible aggravation of the escalation of war.

At the same time, the President of the United States, Joe Biden told Netanyahu he expects “significant de-escalation” for today., according to the White House.

According to the statement released by Washington after the fourth conversation between the two leaders since the start of the crisis, on May 10, “they have had a detailed discussion on Israel’s Progress in Downgrading the Capabilities of Hamas and Other Terrorist Elements“.

Off-screen sources have said that, Thanks to these efforts, an Israeli ground invasion has so far been avoided..

“They can be conquered, and that’s always an open possibility, or they can be deterred”the Israeli prime minister said in a meeting with foreign ambassadors, alluding to Palestinian terrorist groups. And added: “Now we are busy with deterrence by force, but I must say that we are not ruling anything out”.

Israel ignores Biden, announces it will continue to attack Hamas in Gaza

Since May 10 at least 219 Palestinians died in hundreds of air and ground artillery attacks. As the fighting escalates, medical supplies, fuel and clean water are lacking in Gaza. Yes there are already 58,000 inhabitants of the enclave who have abandoned their homes.

In the same period, more than 3,700 rockets fired from Gaza killed 12 people in Israel.

Palestinian Autonomous Government President Mahmoud Abbas today accused Israel of “organized state terrorism and war crimes”. In a speech broadcast on television, the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) said they could apply to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating the large Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza in 2014.

Abbas also assured that the Palestinian authorities “They will never accept a substitute” in Jerusalem and that without it “there will be no peace, security, stability, disagree in the region or in the world“.

Abbas and the PNA rule in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, but not in the Gaza Strip, from where his party was displaced by Hamas when the Islamist group took power in 2007.

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In his speech, Abbas said Israel was responsible for “brutal attacks and deliberate bombings on homes”. The government of Netanyahu says he only attacks military targets and that he does all he can to avoid harming civilians.

Israel has occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, when it also conquered Gaza after a war against Arab countries. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but UN still considers it the occupying power of the region because it continues to control its borders, airspace and territorial waters, in addition to has the territory under blockade since 2007.