Pro-Palestinian protesters crowd Chicago streets as the fiercest hostilities in years between Israel and Palestinian militants intensify.
Israel killed a Hamas commander and vowed no let-up in its Gaza barrages on Wednesday as Palestinian militants rained rockets far across the border and Washington dispatched an envoy to try to calm the hostilities.
Palestinian militants fired more rockets into Israel's commercial heartland on Thursday as Israel kept up a punishing bombing campaign in Gaza and massed tanks and troops on the enclave's border.
The four days of violence showed no sign of abating and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the campaign "will take more time."
Worried that the region's worst hostilities in years could spiral out of control, the United States is sending an envoy, Hady Amr. Truce efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations have so far offered no sign of progress.
In renewed airstrikes on Gaza, Israeli warplanes struck a six-story residential building that it said belonged to Hamas, which controls the Palestinian enclave. Netanyahu said Israel has struck close to a thousand militant targets in Gaza in total.
At least 87 people have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated on Monday, medics said, further straining hospitals already under heavy pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Palestinian rocket had earlier crashed into a building near Tel Aviv, injuring five Israelis, police said. Seven people have been killed in Israel since hostilities began, the Israeli military said.
Israel has prepared combat troops along the Gaza border and was in "various stages of preparing ground operations," a military spokesman said, a move that would recall similar incursions during Israel-Gaza wars in 2014 and 2008-2009.
Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida responded to the troop buildup with defiance, urging Palestinians to rise up.
(Source: Reuters)