The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least nine people were killed, including a five-year-old girl, and 55 others were injured.
A CNN producer in Gaza saw medics carrying two bodies from a building called the Palestine Tower that had been hit in one of the strikes.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the military operation — which it called “Breaking Dawn” — targeted Islamic Jihad, the smaller of the two main militant groups in Gaza. A “special state” has been declared in areas around Gaza in anticipation of possible rocket attacks or other retaliatory attacks, the Israeli military said.
Islamic Jihad has vowed to respond. “All options are open, with all the means the Palestinian resistance has, whether in Gaza or outside,” spokesman Daoud Shehab told Al Jazeera. “The battlefield is open… The resistance will respond with full force. We will not say how, but it is inevitable.”
Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, condemned the Israeli action. “The Israeli enemy, who started the escalation against Gaza and committed a new crime, must pay the price and bear full responsibility for it,” said spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.
The strikes come after Israeli forces arrested a senior Islamic Jihad commander, Bassam al-Saadi, during a raid on Monday night in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
During that operation, a 17-year-old Palestinian man linked to Islamic Jihad was shot and killed in a shootout with Israeli soldiers, according to the Israeli military. The Palestinian Health Ministry said he was shot in the head by Israeli forces.
Saadi was one of two wanted terror suspects arrested in that raid, Israel said. The Quds Force, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, said it was mobilizing its forces into the Palestinian territories in response.
Recent months have seen repeated Israeli operations in and around Jenin, following several deadly attacks inside Israel carried out by Palestinian gunmen from the area. Thirty Palestinians have been killed in the raids since the beginning of the year, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Developing story, more to come…
