The Israeli Army has killed this Thursday two other leaders of the Islamic Jihad in bombardments on the Gaza Strip. The escalation pitting Israeli forces against the militias of the enclave has already cost the lives of 29 Palestinians, of whom at least 15 are civilians (including three women and six children), and has injured more than 90, according to sources from the Gaza Ministry of Health. Three leaders of the same armed group were killed in an Israeli operation last Tuesday, at the beginning of the current offensive. Hours after Thursday’s attack, Israeli police reported that a missile launched from the Strip killed one person and wounded at least five others, hitting a residential building in Rehovot, near Tel Aviv.
As confirmed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), an attack at dawn this Thursday in the city of Jan Yunis, in the south of the Strip, has ended the life of Ali Ghali, whom he accuses of being behind of the launch of the recent projectiles from the Strip. “Ali Ghali (…), commander of the rocket launch unit (…), was assassinated in the south of the Gaza Strip along with other martyrs,” the Al Quds Brigades, arm of the armed with Islamic Jihad. Along with Ghali, two militia men who were at the same home at the time of the attack have died.
The Israeli army has reported hours after the death, in a bombardment on Bani Suheila, of a second leading member of Islamic Jihad, whom it identifies as Ahmad Abu Daqqa and considers that “he had an important role in the rocket launches towards Israel ”, according to a statement.
🔴 OPERATIONAL UPDATE: We just targeted Ali Ghali, the commander of Islamic Jihad’s Rocket Launching Force, as well as two other Islamic Jihad operatives in Gaza.
Ghali was a central figure in IJ, as well as responsible for the recent rocket barrages launched against Israel. pic.twitter.com/GToj67UjTT
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) May 11, 2023
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later alluded to the assassination of the two Islamic Jihad leaders, during a visit to the army’s 66th Battalion. “This morning we attacked the commander of the Islamic Jihad rocket unit in Gaza. A few days ago we attacked his assistant ”, he asserted in reference to the attack last Tuesday. Netanyahu later warned: “Whoever hurts us will pay the price, as will the person who replaces them. We are in full campaign [militar]both in attack and defense.
hundreds of rockets
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe
Palestinian militias fired hundreds of rockets Wednesday from the Strip into Israel shortly after fresh Israeli attacks in the worst upsurge in violence in months. The clashes have continued this Thursday. The firing of rockets has been continuous. Initially, only material damage was reported in the southern cities of Sderot and Ashkelon, where anti-aircraft alarms had not stopped ringing, but in the afternoon Israeli police and medical services confirmed that a missile launched from Gaza it had hit a residential building in Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv. One person was killed in this attack and at least five others were injured.
Islamic Jihad, an organization considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the European Union and the United States, has been the target of Israeli attacks since Tuesday. The group has promised a “response on the same scale” as the “crimes” against its fighters. This same Thursday, the armed group has published a video in which its militiamen prepare to launch rockets into Israel while shouting. “They will sink.” In addition, in a statement, he stated that he will not stop the attacks.
Israel and Islamic Jihad held a day of clashes last week over the death of Jader Adnan, a well-known Palestinian prisoner who spent 86 days on a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. The militia fired 104 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, which shelled several points in the Strip. After an informal truce brokered by Egypt and the UN, Israel on Tuesday killed three Islamic Jihad leaders and the offensive has continued with new bombardments on the Strip and rocket fire from Gaza.
The Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, has indicated that he has given orders to “prepare additional actions and maintain preparation in the face of the possibility of an increase in fire.” The army has claimed that as of Thursday it had attacked 166 Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza, from members’ homes to rocket launchers and weapons factories. For their part, the armed militias of Gaza have fired 550 projectiles, of which 175 were intercepted by the Israeli anti-missile system.
Egypt, meanwhile, tries to mediate to end the escalation. “Egypt’s efforts to calm down and resume the political process have not yet borne fruit,” Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said from Berlin.
The UN has also asked “all parties to implement measures to reduce violence.” The spokesman for the organization’s Human Rights office, Jeremy Laurence, said he was “alarmed” by the increase in violence this week in Gaza.
For his part, the head of European Union diplomacy, Josep Borrell, urged both sides to “a general and immediate ceasefire that puts an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza and the current firing of rockets against Israel, which is unacceptable. International humanitarian law must be respected.”
Hamas, the Islamist movement that has controlled Gaza since 2007, has assured that a possible ceasefire will only be reached when Israel stops committing what it defined as “atrocities” in the Gaza Strip, in a statement to the Al Jazeera television channel. by Khaled Qadomi, one of its members.
“Whoever started this aggression has to bear the consequences of their crimes. It is not a question of what the Palestinians should do. It is a question of what the international community has to do”, added this spokesperson.
Follow all the international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
#Israel #kills #Islamic #Jihad #leaders #airstrikes #Gaza