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As Israel continues heavy airstrikes, Palestine claims 'war crimes' and 'apartheid'

Israeli warplanes unleashed a series of heavy airstrikes at several locations of Gaza

PALESTNIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-GAZA Fire rages at sunrise in Khan Yunish following an Israeli airstrike on targets in the southern Gaza strip | AFP

Amid a surge in the Jerusalem violence, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, and carrying out a policy of apartheid in Jerusalem. Al-Malki told a high-level emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Sunday that there are no words that can describe the horrors that our people are enduring, listing families and children and infants killed by Israeli airstrikes.

"Israel is killing Palestinians in Gaza, one family at a time," he said. "Israel is trying to uproot Palestinians from Jerusalem. It is expelling families, one home, neighborhood at a time. Israel is executing our people, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The Palestinian minister then challenged the Security Council, which has remained silent on the escalating violence because of the opposition of Israel's ally the United States to issue a statement, asking: "How many Palestinians killed is enough for a condemnation? What is the threshold of outrage?"

Israeli warplanes unleashed a series of heavy airstrikes at several locations of Gaza City early Monday, hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled the fourth war with Gaza's Hamas rulers would rage on. Explosions rocked the city from north to south for 10 minutes in an attack that was heavier, on a wider area and lasted longer than a series of air raids 24 hours earlier in which 42 Palestinians were killed the deadliest single attack in the latest round of violence between Israel and the Hamas militant group that rules Gaza. The earlier Israeli airstrikes flattened three buildings.

In a televised address on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel's attacks were continuing at "full-force" and would "take time." Israel "wants to levy a heavy price" on the Hamas militant group, he said, flanked by his defense minister and political rival, Benny Gantz, in a show of unity. Hamas also pressed on, launching rockets from civilian areas in Gaza toward civilian areas in Israel. One slammed into a synagogue in the southern city of Ashkelon hours before evening services for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, Israeli emergency services said. No injuries were reported.

The hostilities have repeatedly escalated over the past week, marking the worst fighting in the territory that is home to two million Palestinians since Israel and Hamas' devastating 2014 war. Rescuers furiously dug through the rubble using excavators and bulldozers amid clouds of heavy dust. One shouted, "Can you hear me?" into a hole. Minutes later, first responders pulled a survivor out. The Gaza health ministry said 16 women and 10 children were among those killed, with more than 50 people wounded.

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