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The Israeli Army fired several projectiles at the Gaza Strip in the early hours of this Friday, January 27, in response to the launch of rockets from the Palestinian enclave, which Islamic Jihad claimed hours later. The fighting escalates after the deadly raid by Israeli forces a day earlier in the occupied West Bank, which left nine people dead.
It is a new outbreak in a conflict that has simmered for decades. Clashes between Israelis and Palestinians had another escalation this Friday, January 27, when Israeli planes bombed the Gaza Strip.
It was a retaliatory action after hours before at least five rockets were launched from the Palestinian enclave towards Israeli soil, which sounded alarms in the southeast of the territory.
According to the version of the Israeli military forces, the projectiles were intercepted by the ‘Iron Dome’, its air defense system.
In the last few hours, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the launch of the rockets fired from Gaza.
“The rocket unit of the Jerusalem Brigades responded,” Khaled Al-Batsh, leader of the Islamic movement, said during a rally in Gaza on Friday.
However, prior to this declaration, Israel assured that the target of its response actions were facilities of the Hamas group, which controls the Palestinian enclave and is considered a terrorist organization by the Jewish-majority government.
“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) attacked an underground rocket manufacturing site belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization (…) In addition, IDF warplanes attacked a military base used by the Hamas terrorist organization in northern Israel. the Gaza Strip. The base served as an important center of terrorist activities,” the military institution said through its Twitter account.
Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, pointed out in recent hours that he would stop his airstrikes if Palestinian militant groups stop their rocket attacks.
But Gallant also warned that there would be further assaults “if necessary,” so he instructed his forces to be ready.
So far, the cross-border fire has left no victims on either side.
Fateful raid in the West Bank, the latest boiling point of the war escalation
The rocket fire came after Hamas and other movements such as Islamic Jihad warned the Israeli authorities that there would be consequences for the army raid on Thursday, January 26, in the occupied West Bank, in which nine Palestinians died.
By admissions from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed militia affiliated with Fatah, the political party of the Palestinian National Authority, most of the dead were members of their movements. However, two civilians were also killed, including a 60-year-old woman.
This is considered the bloodiest Israeli incursion in two decades in the West Bank and it occurred in the Jenin refugee camp, a critical point in the conflict because Israel points out that militants it considers terrorists are taking refuge there and that it says are involved in attacks against Israeli citizens.
But the place is also home to thousands of civilians, including women and children. Palestinians and civil organizations indicate that in the events on Thursday, Israeli troops used disproportionate force and even prevented the passage of ambulances.
Likewise, the authorities in the occupied territories denounce that only in the course of January, at least 30 Palestinians have died at the hands of Israel. The latest death was a 22-year-old man, who was shot during a protest on Thursday in Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem.
This escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an early test for the new government with a Jewish majority, the most far-right in the country’s history, whose members have openly shown their opposition to the formation of an eventual Palestinian state, a decades-long request from their neighbors. and crucial point to end the long-standing Israeli occupation.
With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledging to take a hard line on the conflict, the chances of resuming the stalled negotiations between the two sides are increasingly slim.
With Reuters, AP and local media
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