Hamas calls for a 'mobilization' of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday 'in support of Gaza'
Hamas today called for a 'mobilization' of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday 'in support of Gaza', describing it as a day of 'heroism and sacrifice'.
Thousands of Hamas targets have been obliterated by an Israeli aerial bombardment that has relentlessly pounded the Gaza Strip after the terrorists launched a surprise assault that has so far killed at least 900 Israelis.
But now, the terrorist leaders have called for those in the Arab and Islamic world to 'mobilise' and show their support for Hamas and the Palestinian people on Friday.
They also called on the 'revolutionary youth' throughout the West Bank and those in Jerusalem to clash with 'cowardly' Israeli soldiers.
It comes after thousands of Palestinian supporters descended on the Israeli embassy in London, waving flags, singing and setting off flares. Hundreds more clashed with Israeli supporters at a London Underground station as police desperately tried to keep the peace.
Video showed dozens of police officers attempting to separate demonstrators at High Street Kensington Tube station in west London as more than 1,000 pro-Palestine activists gathered on the streets outside.
It comes after thousands of Palestinian supporters descended on the Israeli embassy in London , waving flags, singing and setting off flares
Palestinians watch a fire burn among the rubble of a damaged residential building, in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Gaza City on Tuesday
A fireball erupts from an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Monday
'This is an appeal to our Palestinian people and the masses of the Arab and Islamic world and people of the free world,' the Hamas leaders said on Telegram. 'We are announcing the general mobilisation on Friday in order to support Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa and the struggling Gaza.'
They called on those in the free world to mobilise their support for Hamas and Palestinians on Friday, describing it as a day 'to show our love and support for Palestine and Jerusalem'.
While Israel has been able to wipe out thousands of Hamas targets with airstrikes, harrowing clips circulating social media showed how the rockets and bombs also obliterated Palestinian residential blocks, killing hundreds of civilians.
Israel also ordered a 'complete siege' of Gaza, cutting off electricity, fuel and food for the 2.3 million Palestinians who for the most part were already living in abject poverty.
The four-day-old war has already claimed at least 1,600 lives, as Israel saw gun battles in the streets of its own towns for the first time in decades and neighbourhoods in Gaza were reduced to rubble.
In a response to the savage aerial bombardment of Gaza, Hamas warned late last night it would begin executing Israeli civilian captives.
'Every targeting of our people without warning will be met with the execution of one of the civilian hostages,' Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.
Hamas militants abducted up to 150 people, including women and children, from Israeli territory and dragged them back in Gaza amid their ruthless slaughter.
'We have decided to put an end to this and as of now, we declare that any targeting of our people in their homes without prior warning will be regrettably faced with the execution of one the hostages of civilians we are holding,' Abu Obaida, spokesperson for the Al-Qassam Brigades, later added in a recording released to Al Jazeera.
Israel and Hamas have had repeated conflicts in past years, often sparked by tensions around a Jerusalem holy site.
But this time, the context has become more explosive.
Israeli soldiers patrol a road near the border fence with Gaza on Tuesday
Israeli soldiers scan an area while sirens sound as rockets from Gaza are launched towards Israel on Monday
Palestinians inspect the massive destruction from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on Tuesday
A Palestinian man walks through debris amid destruction from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City's al-Rimal neighbourhood early on Tuesday
The surprise weekend attack by Hamas left a death toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria, fomenting calls for Israel to crush Hamas no matter the cost, rather than continuing to try to bottle it up in Gaza.
Israel is run by its most hard-right government ever, dominated by ministers who adamantly reject Palestinian statehood.
Hamas, in turn, says it is ready for a long battle to end an Israeli occupation it says is no longer tolerable. Desperation has grown among Palestinians, many of whom see nothing to lose under unending Israeli control and increasing settler depredations in the West Bank, the blockade in Gaza and what they see as the world's apathy.
On Monday, thousands of Israelis were evacuated from more than a dozen towns near Gaza, and tanks and drones were deployed to guard breaches in the Gaza border fence against new incursions.
In the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands fled their homes as airstrikes levelled buildings.
The moves, along with Israel's formal declaration of war on Sunday, pointed to Israel increasingly shifting to the offensive against Hamas, threatening greater destruction in the densely populated, impoverished region where 2.3 million people live on top of each other in squalid conditions.
Israel said it had called up 300,000 army reservists for its 'Swords of Iron' campaign, while the IDF said it struck hundreds of Hamas targets in Gaza's City Rimal neighborhood, which is home to Hamas' ministries and governing buildings, overnight.
IDF spokesman Richard Hecht said Gazans were being told to evacuate 'over social media' before strikes, but did not give details.
Also on Monday, Israel found more bodies from Hamas' stunning weekend attack into southern Israeli towns.
Rescue workers found 100 bodies in the tiny farming community of Be'eri - around 10 per cent of its population - after a long hostage standoff with gunmen.
More than 270 bodies, mostly young people, were strewn across the site of a music festival in a Negev desert kibbutz after Hamas attackers used paragliders to cross the border and fire indiscriminately into the crowd.
The Israeli military said more than 900 people already have been killed in Israel.
In Gaza and the West Bank, 704 people have been killed, according to authorities there; Israel says hundreds of Hamas fighters are among them. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
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