Israel has killed several senior Hamas commanders in targeted air strikes in the Gaza Strip as the Jewish state vowed to step up its campaign against the Palestinian militant group in spite of global warnings that clashes could trigger a full-blown war.
“We’ll hit them like they’ve never dreamt possible,” Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said in a statement, adding that the operations in Gaza were “just the beginning”.
In the worst violence since 2014, the Hamas militant group that runs the Gaza Strip launched 1,000 rockets overnight that closed an airport, lit up the sky over Tel Aviv and sent much of the Jewish state’s population into bomb shelters. Israeli air strikes toppled high-rise buildings in Gaza City.