Israel builds up troops on Gaza border after overnight barrage

Casualties have continued to mount in the most severe outbreak of violence between Israel and the Palestinian Territories since 2014.

On Thursday, Israel said it was building up troops along the Gaza frontier as the country called up at least 9,000 reservists ahead of a potential ground invasion.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a statement at just after midnight local time in which it said air and ground forces were "currently attacking the Gaza Strip", offering no further details.

In the early hours of Friday, Gaza was struck in what appeared to be the heaviest attacks yet. Red flame illuminated the skies as deafening blasts from the outskirts of Gaza City jolted people awake. Screams of fear could be heard from people inside the city several kilometres away.

“I said we would extract a very heavy price from Hamas," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a videotaped statement. "We are doing that, and we will continue to do that with heavy force.”

Hamas and the IDF continued to exchange rocket fire and airstrikes throughout Thursday night and into Friday. The former has fired almost 2,000 rockets into Israel since Monday.

Late last night rockets were also fired towards Israel from southern Lebanon, landing in the Mediterranean sea. Lebanese officials said they were thought to have been fired from the refugee camp of Rashidieh.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 103 Palestinians, including 27 children, have been killed, with at least 530 others injured. At least seven Israelis have also been killed since the rocket attacks and airstrikes between Hamas and the IDF began on Monday.

Mohammed Qadada is the founder and CEO of Planet for Digital Solutions in Gaza City and his office was housed in a tower block targeted by Israeli airstrikes. He says he lost his entire business as the tower came down. Speaking to Good Morning Europe, he said these are the worst days he's experienced in Gaza.

"We never experienced the bombing of towers before. That's a big waste of lives, of families and dreams. People are struggling to work hard, to at least have their days in peace. But now it's crazy in Gaza. When I look at my son's eyes now and I see the fear in his eyes, when I can't do anything, it's terrifying. That's not the life we expected, that's not the life we are waiting for."

Tensions over the eviction of Palestinians from strategic parts of East Jerusalem reached boiling point at the start of the week, leading to Israeli police descending on the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, with hundreds injured in the ensuing carnage.

Thousands of Israeli families are now spending the nights in bomb shelters as Hamas intensified its bombardment of cities across Israel, while several multi-storey buildings in Gaza have been reduced to rubble.

Late on Thursday, Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz ordered the mobilization of an additional 9,000 reservists. Chief military spokesman Brig. Gen. Hidai Zilberman said troops, tanks, armoured vehicles an artillery were being prepared along the border for mobilisation "at any given moment".

Despite diplomatic efforts to ease the crisis, which U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he hoped would end "sooner than later", hundreds of rockets flew across the Gaza Strip overnight.

The IDF confirmed early on Thursday it had struck another multi-storey building in the Rimal district of Gaza being used as a base by Hamas intelligence officers.

Israeli artillery also pounded targets in Gaza from the border and mid-way through Thursday were said to have thwarted four separate groups of Hamas militants operating anti-tank missiles inside Gaza.

In the early hours of Friday, the IDF released a video of strikes on what was described as a tunnel system used by Hamas in Gaza. The operation reportedly involved 160 aircraft, tanks, artillery and infantry units along the border.

The Israeli army has struck more than 600 targets in the Gaza Strip since the conflict began four days ago. In Gaza, a crowded coastal enclave of 2 million people, there are no air raid sirens or safe houses.

On the morning of Eid al-Fitr on Thursday, the normally joyous holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, residents of the Palestinian Territories woke up to scenes of devastation.

Distraught families in hospital told of pulling their bloodied relatives from piles of rubble while bombs continued to thunder in the distance.

“There is nowhere to run, there is nowhere to hide,” Zeyad Khattab, a 44-year-old pharmacist, told AP after fleeing to the central district of Deir al-Balah when his high-rise was bombed. “That terror is impossible to describe.”

Hamas rocket attacks had also terrorized Israeli citizens on Wednesday night. Most of the rockets were deflected by the country's Iron Dome air defence system but some landed, destroying homes and property.

Several mixed Israeli cities had been rocked by street-level mob violence on Wednesday between far-right Jewish groups and Arab citizens of Israel. Businesses and synagogues were looted and torched, and at least one Palestinian was shot and killed in the city of Lod.

Police confirmed on Thursday that they arrested nearly 400 people allegedly “involved in riots and disturbances” across the country the previous night.

There was then more ethnic strife on Thursday evening. In Tel Aviv, two Jewish men attacked a journalist covering a gathering of ultranationalists.

In Lod, a Jewish man was shot and badly injured by an Arab man while in Jaffa, an Israeli soldier was attacked by a group of Arabs and taken to hospital in serious condition.

The relentless escalation of hostilities, which are spreading farther and wider than at any time since the 2000 Palestinian intifada, came even as Egyptian negotiators held in-person talks with the two sides in a bid to broker a ceasefire.

Egyptian officials arrived in the region on Thursday and met first with Hamas leaders in Gaza before holding talks with the Israelis in Tel Aviv.

But just as their presence was first being reported, Hamas fired an almost simultaneous volley of another 100 rockets, raising air raid sirens around southern and central Israel. “The decision to bomb Tel Aviv, Dimona and Jerusalem is easier for us than drinking water,” a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing said in a video message.

Saleh Aruri, an exiled senior Hamas leader, told London-based satellite channel Al Araby early on Friday that his group had turned down a proposal for a three-hour lull to allow for more negotiations toward a full cease-fire. He said Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations were leading the truce efforts.

The previous day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also appeared to have shrugged off entreaties by U.S. president Joe Biden to alleviate tensions. Biden told reporters: "My expectation and hope is this will be closing down sooner than later, but Israel has a right to defend itself."

But Netanyahu’s office later said he had told the US president Israel would “continue acting to strike at the military capabilities of Hamas and the other terrorist groups active in the Gaza Strip”.

On Thursday Netanyahu visited batteries of the Iron Dome missile defense system, which the military says has intercepted 90% of the 1,200 rockets fired at Israel from Gaza so far.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined in calls for calm on Thursday, telling reporters: "What everybody wants to see is urgent, urgent de-escalation."

"I certainly think that everybody in the world wants to see an end to the cycle of reprisals and retaliation, they want to see de-escalation," he said.

"They want to see both sides, sitting down and talking through and stopping the violence."