Violent clashes over the status of Jerusalem escalated dramatically over the last 24 hours

Violent clashes over the status of Jerusalem escalated dramatically over the last 24 hours with Hamas-fired rockets from Gaza into Israel and retaliatory airstrikes leading to international calls for the violence to stop. At the United Nations in New York, the Secretary General urged maximum restraint while the US called for the violence to cease and for parties to take proactive steps to calm the situation. The upsurge came as a result of possible evictions of Palestinian families from neighbourhoods in the disputed East Jerusalem and as Israeli's celebrated Jerusalem Day to mark the beginning of occupation of East Jerusalem during the six-day Arab-Israeli war of 1967.