GAZA (Dispatches) -- Palestinian resistance fighters on Monday targeted an Israeli military vessel off the coast of the Gaza Strip as the occupying regime continued its bombardment of the besieged enclave at the start of the second week despite growing international outcry.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas resistance movement, announced in a statement that a Zionist battleship was hit off the coast of the Gaza Strip with a barrage of missiles.
The statement said the missile attack came after the Zionist military launched fresh series of air raids on the Gaza Strip early on Monday.
The Al-Qassam Brigades said it had renewed shelling Erez kibbutz in the southwestern part of the occupied territories, which lies just one kilometer north of the Gaza Strip, and Hatzerim airbase on the western outskirts of of Beersheba.
The Islamic Jihad resistance movement said the ongoing battle in the face of the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip has achieved “major goals,” emphasizing that the Palestinian resistance front “insists on achieving victory for Al-Quds”.
On Sunday U.S.-made Israeli F-35 warplanes pounded the Gaza Strip whilst horrified civilians were sleeping in their homes.
The Islamic Jihad said the strikes were conducted after Palestinian resistance fighters inflicted heavy losses on the occupied lands which took Israeli officials off guard.
The Palestinian resistance movement went on to say that Operation Al-Quds’ Sword “will take revenge for the killing of children at the hands of terrorists, who deprived Palestinians of the happiness of Eid al-Fitr, and attacked holy sites during the holy month of Ramadan”.
Israeli air raids against civilian facilities and residential buildings, it said, are a “clear proof of the systematic terrorism by the Israeli enemy”.
The Islamic Jihad also decried Washington’s stance on the Israeli acts of aggression against Palestinians, saying it “has provided a cover-up for Israel’s atrocities and violations, and made the United States complicit in the regime’s hostilities”.
Meanwhile, Hamas warned on Monday that it will resume missile attacks on Tel Aviv if the Zionist regime continues its airstrikes against residential areas of Gaza.
The warning was announced by Hamas spokesman Abu Ubeida after Israeli warplanes targeted a residential tower in Gaza City, martyring two Palestinians and injuring 10 others.
Tensions escalated in Jerusalem Al-Quds, the occupied West Bank and Gaza amid the planned misappropriation of dozens of Palestinian homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
At least 200 people, including 59 children, have been martyred in the Gaza Strip since the latest bout of Israeli violence began a week ago. More than 1,300 Palestinians have also been wounded.
Ten Zionists, including a military officer, have been killed in the ongoing retaliatory rocket attacks launched from Gaza.
Retaliatory rocket attacks continued Monday, with one hitting a building in the city of Ashdod that caused injuries, the Israeli police said.
Violence by Zionist settlers against Arabs inside Occupied Palestine have also left scores of people injured.
Gaza City’s mayor, Yahya Sarraj, said that the strikes had caused extensive damage to roads and other infrastructure. He said water supplies to hundreds of households in the city were disrupted. “We are trying hard to provide water, but the situation remains difficult,” he said.
The UN has warned that the territory’s sole power station is at risk of running out of fuel. Gaza already experiences daily power outages for between eight and 12 hours, and tap water is undrinkable. Muhammad Thabet, a spokesman for the territory’s electricity distribution company, said it has fuel to supply Gaza with electricity for two or three days.
Medical workers and health organizations decried the killing of two senior doctors – a neurologist and the head of internal medicine at Gaza’s largest hospital – in Israeli attacks on the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Their deaths further exacerbate a medical staff and expertise shortage in the Gaza Strip, the result of a 14-year-long blockade that prevents freedom of movement, causes dire supply and equipment shortages and hinders medical advancement.
Dr Ayman Abu al-Ouf, head of internal medicine at Al-Shifa hospital, was martyred along with members of his family in an early morning missile attack in the Al-Wehda district of Gaza on Sunday.
The bombing martyred at least 33 civilians and left rescuers sifting through the rubble of apartment buildings to find survivors.
Dr Mooein Ahmad al-Aloul, a 66-year-old psychiatric neurologist, was also martyred in his home during the Al-Wehda attacks early Sunday, his brother Mazen al-Aloul told Al Jazeera.
The UN Security Council met on Sunday to discuss the violence but failed to agree on even a joint statement of concern. China said it was the United States that obstructed the council from speaking “with one voice”.
“Regrettably, simply because of the obstruction of one country, the Security Council hasn’t been able to speak with one voice,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during the virtual meeting. “We call upon the United States to shoulder its due responsibilities of taking a just position.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaled Monday Washington still was not joining calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Blinken’s stand comes despite growing pressure from the United States’ UN Security Council partners, some Democrats and others for President Joe Biden’s administration and other international leaders to end the Israeli atrocities.
Blinken’s comments came after UN Security Council diplomats and Muslim foreign ministers convened emergency weekend meetings to demand a stop to civilian bloodshed, as Israeli warplanes carried out the deadliest single attacks Sunday.

Seven Zionist Officers Injured in Car-Ramming

Zionist shot dead a Palestinian in Sheikh Jarrah after a car-ramming attack in the flashpoint Jerusalem Al-Quds neighborhood.
Israeli authorities said that seven military officers were wounded when a Palestinian rammed his car into a temporary police checkpoint on Nablus Road in Sheikh Jarrah on Sunday.
A hospital spokesperson said one of the wounded Israeli officers was being treated for gunshot injuries, apparently after being shot in a friendly fire during the Sunday incident.
But police later dismissed the report, citing medical staff as saying that the soldier was not injured by gunfire.
A video of the attack showed a
protester holding a banner as a car crashed into the Israeli officers in the background.
Separately, a grandstand collapsed in a synagogue under construction in the settlement of Givat Zeev in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, leaving at least two Israelis dead and more than 100 injured, according to Israel’s ambulance service.
Israel’s Channel 12 TV broadcast security footage showing a crowded grandstand collapsing and Jews falling on top of each other.
“We were called again to another event where there was negligence and a lack of responsibility. There will be arrests,” Doron Turgeman, an Israeli police chief, said from the scene.
Some 45 Zionists were killed in a stampede during a Jewish bonfire festival held in the north of the occupied territories last April.
More than 600,000 Zionists live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem Al-Quds.
All settlements are illegal under international law and the UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.