Further airstrikes and rocket fire reported in worst violence since 2014 war between Israel and Hamas

Israeli jets and Palestinian militants traded fresh airstrikes and rocket fire early on Wednesday as the UN’s Middle East envoy warned:“We’re escalating towards a full-scale war.”

The death toll since bombardments broke out on Monday night rose to 40 – 35 in Gaza and five in Israel – as Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza and Palestinian militant groups fired multiple rocket barrages at Tel Aviv, Beersheba, and other central Israeli cities.

It was the worst descent into violence since a 2014 war between Israel and Hamas. Israel said militants had fired more than 1,000 rockets in total.

Earlier, the defence minister, Benny Gantz, said “this is just the beginning” of Israel’s strikes. The Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh vowed in turn that “if Israel wants to escalate, we are ready for it”.

The UN envoy Tor Wennesland said leaders on all sides “have to take the responsibility of de-escalation” after a day of ferocious confrontations and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promising to intensify attacks on Gaza.

“The cost of war in Gaza is devastating and is being paid by ordinary people,” said Wennesland, who is expected to brief the 15 members of the UN security council on the crisis on Wednesday, its second such meeting in three days.

“Stop the fire immediately. We’re escalating towards a full-scale war,” he warned.

In the latest violent exchanges early on Wednesday, sirens warning of incoming rocket fire blared in Tel Aviv and several explosions were heard, after Hamas said it had fired 110 rockets towards the coastal city in response to Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. In the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Lod, near Tel Aviv, two people were killed after a rocket hit a vehicle in the area. Local media reported they were a father and daughter.

At 4.30am the Israeli Defence Forces said in a statement that it had struck a number of “significant terror targets and terror operatives across the Gaza Strip” in response to “hundreds” of rockets.

Israeli aircraft also attacked another high-rise building in Gaza City. Five warning rockets were fired from a drone to alert people in the nine-storey block of the incoming bombing. Shortly afterward, the jets struck the building again after journalists and rescuers gathered around.

The structure, which houses residential apartments, medical production companies and a dental clinic, was heavily damaged. There was no immediate word on casualties.

The overnight exchanges echoed violence hours earlier on Tuesday, when a 13-storey tower housing apartments and the offices of officials from Hamas, the Islamist group that holds power in Gaza, was hit by an Israeli airstrike and collapsed. Residents had earlier been told to evacuate. In response, Hamas’s military wing said it had fired 130 rockets towards Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, and air raid sirens and then explosions were heard in the coastal city.

A state of emergency has been declared in Lod, the scene of two nights of rioting by Palestinian citizens of Israel, also known as Arab Israelis, in which synagogues and Jewish schools were reported to have been set on fire, as Israel’s internal strife threatened to be more destabilising than rocket attacks from Gaza.

The White House has responded by saying its “primary focus” was de-escalation and that Joe Biden was being updated on the worsening situation. His spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said US officials were talking to their counterparts in the region.

“We believe Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measures of freedom, security, dignity and prosperity,” Psaki said. “US officials in recent weeks have spoken candidly with Israeli officials about how evictions of Palestinian families who have lived for years, sometimes decades, in their homes, and how demolitions of these homes, work against our common interests and achieving a solution to the conflict.”

Wednesday’s UN security council session is likely to be a test of the Biden administration’s position on an issue that it has sought to play down. On Tuesday, it blocked a UN security council statement calling for a ceasefire.

In recent weeks, there has been a sharp escalation in anger over Israel’s half-century occupation its ever-deepening military grip over Palestinian life and a wave of evictions and demolitions. In Jerusalem, hundreds of Palestinians have been wounded in near-nightly protests that escalated over the weekend and spread to other areas of Israel and the occupied West Bank.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had said the rocket attacks would continue until Israel stopped “all scenes of terrorism and aggression in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa mosque”.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars, which were largely seen as failures for both sides, with Hamas still in power and Israel continuing to maintain a crippling blockade.

The Gardian