Gaza City and Tel Aviv – Israel and armed groups from the Gaza Strip yesterday increased the exchange of fire, which included new bombardments of the Palestinian enclave and the firing of hundreds of rockets against civilian targets in the Jewish state, an escalation that left dozens of dead.
According to sources from the Hamas group, which rules Gaza, Israeli attacks in the past three days have so far cost the lives of 25 Palestinians, including several children. Israel has not provided casualty data. Meanwhile, a man died in Rehovot, central Israel, as a result of the explosion of a rocket in a residential building and two other people were injured. The eruption of violence, which has alarmed the international community and has already set in motion an attempt at mediation by Egypt, began on Tuesday with Israeli attacks on officials of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization.
Yesterday morning, the Hebrew Army said it had attacked a launch platform for mortar shells, also belonging to Jihad (“holy war”). He had previously announced the elimination of another military leader of that radical Islamist movement.
In turn, the organization indicated that it launched a new batch of rockets into Israeli territory, where warning sirens sounded in various locations. Since the rocket fire began on Wednesday, 507 projectiles have been launched towards Israel, of which 154 have been intercepted by the air defense system, according to the Army. Since the first Palestinian rocket fire, sirens have sounded even in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva. In Ashkelon, about 20 kilometers north of the Gaza Strip, shops opened on Thursday and residents went about their daily chores.
“It’s not the first time (rockets) have hit my house, but it doesn’t scare me,” said Miriam Keren, a 78-year-old woman. “At first we were in shock, but we’re not scared, it’s just very unpleasant.”
The Ministry of Health of this territory governed by Hamas Islamists reported 25 deaths, including several children, and 76 wounded since Tuesday.
Goals
Fighters from Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) were killed in the Israeli attacks, both armed groups said.
“We are still in the middle of the campaign,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “Whoever hurts us, whoever sends us terrorists, will pay the price,” he added.
Iran, which supports Islamic Jihad, denounced the “atrocities of the Zionists.”
“Palestine and its resistance groups are united, determined and equipped,” the spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanani, said on Twitter, promising that Israel will get nothing more than “defeat” with these attacks.
In Gaza City, shops were closed yesterday and the streets were deserted. In Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, residents took stock of the damage suffered the day after an Israeli attack that destroyed a three-story building.
“There were children in this house; there were no missile launchers or weapons,” denounced Um Rani al Masri, 65.
Islamic Jihad countered that “Israeli killings will not go unpunished,” vowing that “all options are on the table.”
Hamas indicated that the rocket fire came from “the unified resistance”, and that they constitute a response “to the massacres” perpetrated by the Israeli Army.
On the other hand, in the West Bank, a 30-year-old Palestinian died of gunshot wounds suffered on Wednesday in an Israeli operation near Jenin, in which two members of Islamic Jihad died.
To the alarm of the international community, Egypt, the usual mediator between Israel and Gazan armed groups, is trying to obtain a ceasefire.
Mohamed al Hindi, head of the political department of Islamic Jihad, arrived in Cairo yesterday, said a source from this Palestinian organization.
“Concerned” by the Palestinian shooting, the US ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, said for his part on Twitter that he is “working towards a rapid de-escalation”.
In August 2022, three days of fighting between Israel and Islamic Jihad left 49 Palestinians dead, including 19 children, according to the UN. More than a thousand rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel, causing three injuries.
Source: Ambito
