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Netanyahu asks Gazans to leave Hamas sites

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Gaza residents to leave any site where Palestinian fighters were operating, saying the locations could be attacked.

“I call on the inhabitants of Gaza to vacate immediately every site from which Hamas is carrying out terrorist activity. Every one of these places is a target for us,” he said in broadcast remarks, a day after an Israeli airstrike flattened a Gaza apartment tower.

The Israeli military warned the 11-storey building’s residents to leave, shortly before launching the attack. It said the tower had housed a Hamas command centre. The residential block in the centre of Gaza City collapsed wounding 22 people, including 11 children.

Local residents said the building housed 32 families.

Israel has carried out a series of airstrikes on several commercial and residential targets across Gaza, with a seven-storey office building being the latest one. On Sunday morning, Gaza police said Israeli airstrikes collapsed Zafer tower.

On the same day, a building containing shops in Rafah was hit by an Israeli airstrike, causing a fire. Six Palestinians were injured in the incident, according to Gaza health officials at Najjar hospital in Rafah.

In another incident, an Israeli airstrike killed two people on a motorcycle in Gaza City on Sunday, medical officials said.

Meanwhile, a rocket fired from Lebanon has struck a house in northern Israel. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Early on Sunday, Israeli army said that five rockets were fired into the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights from Syria but there were no reports of casualties.

“At least five rockets fired from Syria hit different locations across the Golan Heights,” the Israeli army said in a statement.

Ceasefire talks

An army spokeswoman told AFP news agency that the rocket attacks occured at around 1:30am (22:30 GMT) but it was not known who launched them, and the Israeli military did not return fire.

Last month a rocket from Syria prompted Israeli artillery to shell Syrian army positions.

At least 11 Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli air strikes on Saturday, as the Israeli military offensive continues.

Israel said it had carried out 55 air strikes over the Gaza Strip on Saturday and that around 64 rockets and mortar rounds hit Israel, with another 14 intercepted, according to AFP.

Amid the violence, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held talks with senior officials of the Arab League on Saturday night in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Earlier that day, Abbas stressed his willingness to achieve a long-term ceasefire between the two enemies.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Saturday urged Israel and Hamas to resume indirect talks and agree to an open-ended ceasefire.

Since the fighting began in July, 2,106 people, most of them civilians, have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials. Since the conflict began in July, 68 Israelis have been killed – including three civilians. A Thai national was also killed in Israel. Al Jazeera


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