Friday 14 May 2021: Early Friday morning, Israeli artillery bombarded northern Gaza in an attempt to destroy a vast network of militant tunnels inside the territory, the military said, bringing the front lines closer to dense civilian areas and paving the way for a potential ground invasion.

Israel has massed troops along the border and called up 9,000 reservists following days of fighting with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Palestinians militants have fired some 1,800 rockets and the Israeli military has launched more than 600 air strikes, toppling at least three apartment blocks. Not less than 119 Palestinians have died in the Hamas-run enclave since the conflict began.

Irris Makler, FRANCE 24’s correspondent in Jerusalem, described it as “a huge night”.

“What that means is: Massive air attacks, and attacks from tanks and canons outside the Gaza strip and into the Gaza strip […] and at every moment there is a rocket attack coming back here.”

Makler said the Israeli military has been targeting Hamas both over-and underground. “A lot of Hamas’s operations have moved underground because of this amazing fire power that Israel has from the air, and so it says it is now hitting it underground as well, and that is why we’re seeing this escalation.”

The development is deeply worrying

“Last night, again, we saw a series of clashes – there’s an enormous police presence but it didn’t make a difference – with buses of people who were coming into the flashpoint towns from other places to take part. They were turned away, but nevertheless, a synagogue was burned in the town of Lod,” she said. “People who took a wrong turn found their cars [coming] under fire.

“It has not just been rocks and not just crowds, there are actually people shooting at each other with live fire in Israeli cities, and the mayor of Lod said yesterday that he thought Israel was on the brink of civil war, and nothing in the night has made anybody change their minds.” Makler said.

The stepped-up fighting came as communal violence in Israel erupted for a fourth night, with Jewish and Arab mobs clashing in the flashpoint town of Lod. The fighting took place despite a bolstered police presence ordered by the nation’s leaders.