The fighting between Israel and Gaza enters its second day with air and missile attacks
Israeli planes bombed Gaza and Palestinian militants fired rockets at Israeli cities on Saturday, after an Israeli operation against Islamic Jihad ended more than a year of relative calm along the border.
On Friday, Israel killed a senior Islamic Jihad leader in a sudden daytime air strike on a high-rise building in Gaza and Palestinian militants responded with a barrage of rockets.
On Saturday, Israel said it launched raids on Islamic Jihad militants who were preparing to launch rockets.
Witnesses said that other strikes targeted five houses, sending thick clouds of smoke and dust into the sky, while the sound of explosions shook Gaza City.
Palestinian militants fired at least 160 rockets across the border, causing sirens to sound and people rushing to shelters as far as the central Israeli city of Modi'in, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The Israeli Ambulance Service stated that most of the missiles were intercepted, and there were no reports of serious injuries.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that the Israeli attacks killed 14 Palestinians, including at least four members of the Islamic Jihad movement, including the leader, Taysir al-Jabari, and a girl, and wounded at least 110 people.
The Israeli army said it arrested 19 Islamic Jihad activists in night raids in the West Bank, while targeting rocket manufacturing sites and their launch pads in Gaza.
The United Nations Middle East envoy, Tor Finsland, said he was deeply concerned about the outbreak of violence, and the Palestinian Authority condemned the Israeli attacks.
In Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health warned today, Saturday, of stopping medical services in government hospitals in the midst of a round of tension with Israel in the Strip, which continues for the second day.
The ministry's spokesman, Ashraf al-Qidra, announced, during a press conference in Gaza, that "the countdown has begun to stop its medical services within 72 hours, due to the stopping of the power plant and the lack of fuel needed to operate the generators."
Al-Qidra stated that work in the outpatient clinics in all government hospitals has been suspended and scheduled surgeries have been suspended to give full opportunity for emergency operations to the victims of the ongoing Israeli attack.
According to a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, the number of Palestinians killed has risen to 13 as a result of Israel's continuous raids, while about 150 others have been wounded since the beginning of the tension yesterday afternoon.
Israeli warplanes continued to launch sporadic raids targeting residential homes, training and monitoring sites belonging to armed groups, as well as agricultural lands in separate areas of the Gaza Strip.
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