Israel shelled the Gaza Strip on Thursday in retaliation for six rockets fired from the enclave, a day after 11 Palestinians were killed in a violent Israeli raid in the occupied West Bankwhere the most violent beginning of the year is experienced since 2000.
(In context: Israel bombs Gaza and Palestinians fire rockets after West Bank ‘massacre’)
Early in the morning, Israeli army warplanes attacked a weapons manufacturing center and a military complex in Gaza, both belonging to the Islamist Hamas movement, which has ruled the Strip since 2007.
These bombardments were in response to six rockets fired hours earlier from the enclave, five of which were intercepted by anti-aircraft defense systems and one fell in an unpopulated area.
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This exchange of fire left no casualties and comes a day after a violent Israeli military raid on the city of Nablus.one of the nuclei of Palestinian armed resistance in the northern West Bank, left 11 Palestinians dead and more than a hundred injured.
In addition to the armed response from Gaza to yesterday’s raid, a civil and political response was also added today by ordinary Palestinians, many of whom today joined a general strike both in the West Bank and in the occupied east of Jerusalem.
The incursion this Wednesday of Israeli troops in Nablus sparked heavy armed clashes with local militiamen and included among its victims an elderly man, a minor and six militiamen linked to local armed groups.
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This raid, one of the most violent in the area in recent years and which did not leave Israeli troops injured, was aimed at capturing “suspects involved in attacks” against Israelis, according to the Army, which explained that its troops they killed the three Palestinians they were looking for.
After these episodes of violence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed today that his policy is clear: “Strike hard against terrorism and deepen our roots in our land.”
“We will continue to crack down on all fronts, near and far, to thwart our enemies’ efforts to attack us. Whoever tries to harm us will pay the price,” he added.
We will continue to crack down on all fronts, near and far, to thwart our enemies’ efforts to attack us. Whoever tries to hurt us will pay the price.
On the other hand, the president announced a long-term security plan that includes, among other things, a reinforcement of police personnel and the establishment of a national guard.
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A newspaper editorial Yedioth Ahronoth, the one with the largest circulation in Israel in the Hebrew language, said that the events of these days “remember the worst days of the first and second intifadas.”
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is experiencing a new peak of violence, which alone so far this year has already left 61 Palestinians dead.
It is about the istart of the deadliest year in the West Bank since 2000, according to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Ministry of Health.
Many of these deaths occurred during armed confrontations triggered by military raids in the West Bank. Added to these are 11 deaths on the Israeli side, all in the context of Palestinian attacks in East Jerusalem.
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‘Shy’ reactions
“I am deeply shocked by the continuing cycle of violence and horrified by the loss of civilian life,” said the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, last night, calling for de-escalation.
on your side, The European Union also said it was “deeply alarmed by the spiral of violence in the West Bank.”
But for the PNA Foreign Ministry, these are “timid, weak” reactions, written in “repetitive and routine formulas” that do not hold Israel responsible for its “war crimes and crimes against humanity” and “are not consistent in terms of international law.
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Mohamed Shtayeh, prime minister of the PNA, described the raid as “organized terrorism” and denounced that Israel seeks to transfer its internal political crisis to the conflict with the Palestinians.
In this regard, the former chief of the General Staff of the Israel Forces, Lieutenant General (retired) Dan Halutz, told Army Radio thate “the increase in operations like these is directly related to the moment in which the current government” of Benjamin Netanyahu took officewho returned to power last December along with his ultra-Orthodox and ultra-nationalist partners.
“These issues cannot be completely unrelated,” he said.
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Raids like yesterday are not new but have become almost daily since late March last year, when Israel launched the so-called “Breaking the Wave” operation in response to a series of deadly attacks by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs.
Israel took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967 and since then has maintained an occupation of these territories considered among the longest in recent history.
EFE
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