At least 26 Palestinians dead as Israeli strikes continue to pound Gaza for second day

Palestinians fired barrages of rockets into Israel, as its military pounded Gaza with airstrikes through the early hours of Tuesday, in a dramatic escalation of clashes in occupied Jerusalem.

Explosions shook buildings throughout Gaza and rocket sirens sent Israelis in many southern towns scurrying for shelter overnight. Two Palestinians were killed and more than 100 wounded in airstrikes, Palestinian officials said.

Six Israelis were wounded by a rocket, medics claimed.

Nine children were among the 26 dead in Gaza on Monday and scores of rockets were launched into Israel, many that were intercepted by missile defences.

The upsurge in violence came as Israel celebrated “Jerusalem Day”, marking its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The escalation began with confrontations at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the heart of the walled Old City on the compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary - the most sensitive site in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said more than 300 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police, who fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas in the compound.

Although the trouble died down after a few hours, there were other focal points of tension, such as the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem just north of the Old City, where several Palestinian families face are being forcefully evicted from homes claimed by Jewish settlers in a long-running legal case.

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Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, set an evening deadline for Israel to remove its police from Al-Aqsa and Sheikh Jarrah. When it expired, sirens wailed in Jerusalem and rockets pounded the city’s outskirts.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern part annexed after the 1967 war in a move that has not secured international recognition.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem for the capital of a state they seek in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamas and other groups claimed responsibility for the rocket fire on Israel.

The Israeli military claimed it struck targets that included 'militant' operatives, attack tunnels and the home of a Hamas battalion commander.

Of the 26 Palestinians killed on Monday, seven, including three children, were family members who died in an explosion in the town of Beit Hanoun.

A Palestinian official told Reuters that Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations, which have mediated truces between Israel and Hamas in the past, were in contact with the group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Tension had been building for weeks during the holy month of Ramazan, amid clashes between occupying Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters prompting international concern that events could spiral out of control.