Palestinian militants fired a barrage of rockets hours later as air raid sirens blared in central and southern Israel. Islamic Jihad claimed to have fired 100 rockets. The strikes risked sparking yet another war in the territory. Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas leaders have fought four wars and several smaller battles over the past 15 years, at staggering costs to the region’s two million Palestinian residents. An explosion was heard in Gaza City, where smoke billowed from the seventh floor of a high-rise building. Meanwhile, a few hundred people gathered outside the morgue at Gaza City’s main Shifa hospital. Some went inside to identify loved ones, to shed tears. Palestinians react at a hospital after Israeli strikes in Gaza City on Friday. (Ibrahim Abu Mustafa/Reuters) The Palestinian Health Ministry said a five-year-old girl and a 23-year-old woman were among the dead and that 55 other people were injured. He did not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The Israeli military said initial estimates were that about 15 fighters were killed. Islamic Jihad said Taiseer al-Jabari, its northern Gaza commander, was killed in the strikes. As mourners prepared to hold funerals for those killed in the attacks, hundreds — some waving Palestinian flags — marched through the streets of Gaza. Emergency services remove a woman from a building after an explosion in Gaza City on Friday. The Israeli military said the series of airstrikes targeted the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. (Mohamed Salem/Reuters)
Airstrikes targeting militant groups, Israel says
The Israeli military said it was targeting Islamic Jihad in an operation called “Breaking Dawn.” He also announced a “special situation” on the home front, with schools closed and other activities restricted in communities within 80 kilometers of the border. Israel had closed roads around Gaza earlier this week and sent reinforcements to the border as it prepared for a revenge attack following the capture of a senior Islamic Jihad leader in the occupied West Bank on Monday. Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes on a building in Gaza City on Friday. (Hatem Moussa/The Associated Press) In a nationally televised speech Friday night, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said his country launched the attacks based on “specific threats.” “This administration has a policy of zero tolerance for any attempted attacks — of any kind — from Gaza into Israeli territory,” Lapid said. He added that “Israel is not interested in a wider conflict in Gaza, but it will not avoid such a conflict either.” We have not yet been able to rebuild what Israel destroyed a year ago.- Mansour Mohammed-Ahmed, farmer Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah, speaking to Iran’s al-Mayadeen television network, said “we are starting the fight and the Palestinian resistance fighters must stand together to face this aggression.” He said there would be no “red lines” in the confrontation and blamed the violence on Israel. “The Israeli enemy, which started the escalation against Gaza and committed a new crime, must pay the price and bear full responsibility for it,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. Palestinians help an injured man after an explosion in Gaza City on Friday following a series of Israeli airstrikes. (Mohamed Salem/Reuters) Islamic Jihad is smaller than Hamas, but shares much of its ideology. Both groups oppose Israel’s existence and have carried out dozens of attacks over the years, including firing rockets into southern Israel.
There is no “breathing space” from last year’s war
Israel’s most recent war with Hamas in Gaza was in May 2021, and tensions flared again earlier this year after a wave of attacks inside Israel, near-daily military operations in the West Bank and tensions in a flashpoint of Jerusalem . “We still haven’t been able to rebuild what Israel destroyed a year ago. People haven’t had a chance to breathe and here Israel is attacking again for no reason,” said Mansour Mohammad-Ahmed, 43, a farmer from the center. Gauze. Israel and Egypt have maintained a strict blockade of Gaza since Hamas took over 15 years ago. Israel says the shutdown is necessary to prevent Hamas from developing its military capabilities, while critics say the policy amounts to collective punishment. Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, said hospitals faced shortages after Israel imposed a complete shutdown on Gaza earlier this week. He said there were enough supplies and essential medicines to sustain hospitals for five days in normal times, but that, with a new round of fighting under way, “they could run out at any moment”. Israelis march demanding the return of captured civilians and remaining soldiers held in Gaza near Kibbutz Yad Mordechai near the Israel-Gaza border on Friday. (Ariel Schalit/The Associated Press) Earlier on Friday, several hundred Israelis demonstrated near the Gaza Strip to demand the return of a prisoner and the remains of two Israeli soldiers held by Hamas.
