JERUSALEM
A pre-season-friendly soccer game between Juventus and Atletico Madrid in Israel has been cancelled amid Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media on Saturday.
The game between the Italian and Spanish teams had been set to take place on Sunday evening at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium.
The match has been scrapped “due to the current security situation,” The Times of Israel said, citing a statement by the Spanish club.
Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Friday citing “imminent threat of attack” by Islamic Jihad group.
At least 12 Palestinians, including a 5-year-old girl, were killed and 84 others injured in the Israeli attacks, according to the Health Ministry.
The attacks came amid rising tensions across the Palestinian territories since Monday when Israeli forces detained Bassam al-Saadi, a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad group, in a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.
While Tel Aviv has not been targeted by Palestinian rockets since the violence erupted, sirens have sounded in the suburbs of Holon and Bat Yam.
On Friday, the Tel Aviv municipality opened the city’s bomb shelters.
The majority of rockets fired Saturday have targeted southern towns, but projectiles were launched at the central city of Modiin around noon.
The Israeli army said Saturday that over 160 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, with 60 of them intercepted. The military warned that its airstrikes in Gaza may last for a week.
