Israel on Friday killed one of the group’s top commanders in a surprise daytime airstrike on a high-rise building in Gaza City, which drew rockets in response. read more On Saturday, Israel said it hit Islamic Jihad fighters preparing to launch rockets and militant positions. Additional shelling targeted five houses, witnesses said, sending huge clouds of smoke and debris into the air as explosions rocked Gaza City. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Palestinian militants fired at least 160 rockets along the border, setting off air raid sirens and sending people running for bomb shelters as far as the central Israeli town of Modiin, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Islamic Jihad said it had targeted Israel’s main international gateway, Ben Gurion Airport, but the missile fell near Modiin, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away, and the Civil Aviation Authority said the airport was operating normally with adjusted routes flights. Most of the rockets were intercepted and there were no reports of serious casualties, according to the Israeli Ambulance Service. Efforts by Egypt, the UN and Qatar to end the conflict were ongoing. Further escalation will largely depend on whether Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, chooses to join the fighting. Israeli strikes have killed 14 Palestinians, including at least four more Islamic Jihad fighters and a child, and wounded at least 110 people, the Palestinian health ministry said. Islamic Jihad did not give exact details of how many of its members had been killed and did not signal an immediate ceasefire. “The time now is for resistance, not a truce,” a group official told Reuters. Overnight, Israel’s military said it captured 19 Islamic Jihad fighters in raids in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, targeting the group’s rocket manufacturing facilities and launchers in Gaza.
CONCERNED UN REPRESENTATIVE
Smoke rises during an Israeli airstrike, amid Israeli-Gaza fighting, in Gaza City, August 6, 2022. REUTERS/Ibrahim Abu Mustafa read more Some 2.3 million Palestinians are huddled in the narrow coastal Gaza Strip, with Israel and Egypt severely restricting the movement of people and goods in and out of the enclave and imposing a naval blockade, citing security concerns. Israel halted scheduled fuel shipments to Gaza shortly before it struck on Friday, crippling the region’s only power plant and cutting electricity to about 8 hours a day and warning health officials that hospitals would be severely damaged within days. The border has been largely quiet since May 2021, when 11 days of fierce fighting between Israel and militants left at least 250 dead in Gaza and 13 in Israel. UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was deeply concerned by the violence and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority condemned Israel’s attacks. The streets of Gaza were largely deserted on Saturday afternoon. At the site where top Islamic Jihad commander Tayseer al-Jaabari was killed, rubble, glass and furniture were strewn along the road. A neighbor, Mariam Abu Ghanima, 56, said the Israeli army did not issue a warning before the attack, as it had done in previous rounds of violence. An army spokesman said the force had made efforts to avoid civilian casualties in the surprise attack, which had used precision means to target a specific floor of the building. Israel has imposed special security measures in its southern territories near Gaza and is preparing to call in about 25,000 troops, according to Military Radio, and streets in towns near the border were empty. Tensions rose this week after Israeli forces arrested an Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank, prompting threats of retaliation from the group. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Friday’s strikes prevented a direct and specific attack by Islamic Jihad, which is backed by Iran and designated a terrorist organization by the West. Some Israeli political analysts said the military operation gave Lapid an opportunity to bolster his security credentials ahead of the Nov. 1 election. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Maayan Lubell writes. edited by Robert Birsel and Jason Neely Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Nidal Al-Mughrabi Thomson Reuters Senior correspondent with nearly 25 years of experience covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, including several wars and the signing of the first historic peace agreement between the two sides.
