Egypt, the traditional mediator in the conflict, is working to obtain a ceasefire to end this escalation, the most serious between Palestinian armed groups in Gaza and Israel since August 2022.
But at night there was new rocket fire from Gaza. “The Palestinian resistance continues to attack Israeli cities,” the al-Qods Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, said in a statement.
These statements are in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in a televised speech stated: “We are in the middle of the campaign against Islamic Jihad.”
Since the first rocket fire in the early afternoon, warning sirens have sounded in Israeli towns around the Gaza Strip, but also as far east as Beersheba, and as far north as Tel Aviv.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “very concerned” about the uptick in violence, according to a spokesman.
The Arab League, which held an extraordinary meeting on the issue, “strongly” condemned “widespread Israeli crimes.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reported “more than 400” rocket launches from Gaza. “No Israeli civilians have been injured,” Netanyahu said, urging people in Gaza border areas to stay in shelters as some rockets caused material damage.
Islamic Jihad, an organization considered “terrorist” by Israel, the European Union and the United States, has been the target of Israeli attacks since Tuesday.
The group had promised a “response on the same scale as the crimes against our people and our fighters” after three of its military leaders were killed in Israeli strikes that killed 15 people in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, including four. children.
death of civilians
Gaza’s Palestinian health ministry reported seven deaths Wednesday in Israeli strikes, including a 10-year-old girl whose remains were seen by an AFP journalist at Gaza’s Shifa hospital.
Four of those killed this day were fighters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), according to the group.
Egypt intervened to try to defuse the situation. “Egypt is trying to make it easier to obtain a ceasefire,” an anonymous Israeli official told AFP. In Gaza, sources close to Hamas and Islamic Jihad corroborated this initiative, confirmed by an Egyptian source.
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip, a narrow and impoverished Palestinian territory, has 2.3 million inhabitants. It has been ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement since 2007 and is under a blockade by Israel. Since 2008 it has been the scene of several wars with Israel.
People in Gaza “expect the worst,” said resident Monther Abdullah. “I feel that a war is coming and there is tension and fear, either here or there (in Israel),” said the 50-year-old man.
Around the Palestinian enclave, the inhabitants of Israeli towns took refuge in shelters, and schools were closed in a 40 km zone around the territory, according to Israeli public radio.
Amos Guetta, a 58-year-old resident of Ashkelon, said he was “both distressed and pleased that something was done to stop” the rocket fire.
“We are prepared for a possible reinforced operation and intense attacks in Gaza,” Netanyahu said., in a meeting with officials in southern Israel. There were already rocket fire between groups from Gaza and Israel last week after the death in an Israeli jail of an Islamic Jihad official on hunger strike.
In August 2022, three days of clashes between Israel and Islamic Jihad resulted in the deaths of 49 Palestinians, including at least 19 children according to the UN. Around 200 rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel, wounding three.
In the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967, two members of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad were killed this Wednesday during an Israeli raid near Jenin (north).
Since the beginning of the year, at least 132 Palestinians, 19 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed. in acts of violence related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an AFP count of official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
Source: Ambito
