On Saturday, after an Israeli operation against the violent Islamic Jihad group put an end to more than a year of largely peace along the border, Israeli planes hit in Gaza and Palestinians fired rockets at Israel.
One of the group’s senior commanders was killed by Israel on Friday in a surprise afternoon airstrike on a tall structure in Gaza City, which triggered retaliatory rocket fire.
Israel claimed to have hit Islamic Jihad members on Saturday as they prepared to fire missiles. Witnesses reported that more bombings struck three houses, destroying at least one of them as more explosions shook Gaza City.
At least 160 rockets fired from across the border by Palestinian terrorists sounded air raid sirens and forced people to flee to bomb shelters as far away as Modiin, a city in central Israel between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
According to the Israeli ambulance service, the majority of the missiles were intercepted and there were no reports of serious casualties.
The United Nations, Qatar, and Egypt were all working to put an end to the violence. The likelihood of further escalation would mostly depend on Hamas, the Islamic terrorist organisation in charge of Gaza.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 84 individuals have been injured by the Israeli airstrikes, which also left 12 Palestinians dead, including at least four additional Islamic Jihad fighters and a child.
Islamic Jihad gave no specific information regarding the number of its members who had died and gave no indication of an impending cease-fire. A group official told Reuters that ‘the time is now for resistance, not a truce.’
The Israeli military reported that during raids in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and while pursuing the group’s rocket manufacturing facilities and launchers in Gaza, it had captured 19 Islamic Jihad fighters.
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