New Delhi: Tensions soared early Friday morning after the Israeli army launched airstrikes on Gaza following rocket launches by Palestine militants towards southern Israel, as reported by the news agency AP.
Security sources in Gaza told AFP that there were 15 strikes targeting militant sites.
Palestinian militants fired five rockets at Israel. Three were intercepted, one fell in an open area and another fell short inside Gaza, the military said as reported by AP. There has been no immediate report of casualties.
The exchange of fire comes after an Israel raid in the occupied West Bank killed nine Palestinians, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman. The AP report mentioned the raid as the deadliest single raid in the territory in over two decades. The deadly violence poses an early test for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.
It also casts aspersions over the expected visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region next week. The Israeli strikes targeted training sites for Palestinian militant groups, the military said. Witnesses and local media reported that Israeli drones fired two missiles at a Hamas militant base before fighter jets struck it, causing four large explosions, the AP report said.
It further added that air raid sirens went off in southern Israel as the initial two rockets were fired and then again after the airstrikes, when the militants fired the other three rockets.
West Bank Raid
The report said that Thursday’s deadly raid in the Jenin refugee camp was likely to reverberate on Friday as Palestinians gather for weekly Muslim prayers that are often followed by protests. Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, had earlier threatened revenge for the raid.
The gun battle that left nine dead and 20 wounded erupted when Israel’s military conducted a rare daytime operation in the Jenin camp that it said was meant to prevent an imminent attack on Israelis. The camp, where the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group has a major foothold, has been a focus of near-nightly Israeli arrest raids.
The Israeli military stated its forces moved in to capture Islamic Jihad members plotting "big assaults". The Palestinian president accused Israel of a "massacre" in Jenin, the site of many operations in recent months. The incursions are part of an anti-terrorism drive launched by the Israeli military in April.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated its troops invaded Jenin to arrest an Islamic Jihad "terror squad", who it accused of being "heavily involved in planning and executing many major terrorist assaults on Israeli citizens and soldiers".
According to the report, officers surrounded a building, and three armed suspects were "neutralised" after opening fire, while a fourth suspect surrendered. According to the IDF, troops were fired at by additional Palestinian militants and responded fire, striking targets. It claimed it was looking into "claims about more victims". According to Islamic Jihad and Hamas, its militants attacked the forces with gunfire and improvised explosive devices.
The IDF stated the residence was being used as a hideaway by an Islamic Jihad cell, and furnishings inside had caught fire.
The exterior walls of the ground level were reduced to rubble, exposing the bathroom taps and sink. Meanwhile, the upper level was riddled with gunshot holes, and the stairs had a swimming pool.
US Reaction To Raid
Top US diplomat for the Middle Ease Barbara Leaf said that the Biden administration was deeply concerned about the situation and that civilian casualties reported in Jenin were “quite regrettable.”
She also said the Palestinian announcement to suspend security ties and to pursue the matter at international organisations was a mistake, the report further added. Tensions have intensified since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks.