- Fifteen dead, hundreds injured – Palestinian Ministry of Health
- At least 200 rockets fired at the Israeli army
- Israel killed Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza on Friday
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Aug 6 (Reuters) – An Israeli jet struck Gaza and Palestinians fired rockets deep into Israel on Saturday, a day after an Israeli operation against the Islamic Jihad militant group triggered a cross-border eruption that ended more than a year of relative calm.
Islamic Jihad fired rockets into Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv, after Israel killed one of the group’s top commanders in a surprise daytime airstrike on a tower block in Gaza City on Friday. Read more
The military said Saturday that Israel struck more Islamic Jihad militants and weapons caches hidden in residential areas. The shelling of at least five houses sent huge clouds of smoke and debris into the air, as explosions rocked Gaza and ambulances rushed through the streets.
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Israeli strikes have killed 15 Palestinians, including at least four other Islamic Jihad militants and three civilians, including a child, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. He added that many more had been injured.
Palestinian militants fired at least 200 rockets at Israel, most of them intercepted, setting off air raid sirens and sending people running for air raid shelters. There were no reports of serious casualties, the Israeli Ambulance Service said.
Egypt said it was in intensive talks to calm the situation. A further escalation will largely depend on whether Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, chooses to join the fighting.
An Egyptian intelligence delegation led by Major General Ahmed Abdelkhaliq arrived in Israel on Saturday and will travel to Gaza for mediation talks, two Egyptian security sources said. They hoped to secure a one-day ceasefire to hold the talks, the sources added.
Islamic Jihad indicated that there was no imminent ceasefire. “Now is the time for resistance, not a truce,” a group official told Reuters. The group has not said how many of its members have been killed since Friday.
CONCERN
Palestinians inspect a house hit in an Israeli airstrike, amid fighting between Israel and Gaza, in Gaza City August 6, 2022. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
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Around 2.3 million Palestinians are packed into Gaza’s narrow coastal strip, with Israel and Egypt strictly restricting the movement of people and goods in and out of the enclave and imposing a naval blockade, citing security concerns .
Israel halted a planned shipment of fuel to Gaza shortly before Friday’s attack, crippling the territory’s lone power plant and cutting electricity to about 8 hours a day and prompting warnings from health officials that hospitals would be severely affected in few days.
The border had 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 and EU envoys to the Middle East expressed concern over the violence and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority condemned Israel’s attacks. US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said on Twitter that “Israel has the right to protect itself.”
The streets of Gaza were largely deserted Saturday afternoon. Debris, glass and furniture were strewn across the street at the site where top Islamic Jihad commander Tayseer al-Jaabari was killed.
In Israel, the streets of border towns were largely empty, while fires sparked by rockets spread through nearby fields.
Islamic Jihad said it had fired a missile at Israel’s main international gateway, Ben Gurion Airport, but the rocket fell short about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away. The Civil Aviation Authority said the airport was operating normally.
Tensions rose this week after Israeli forces arrested an Islamic Jihad commander in the occupied West Bank, prompting threats of retaliation from the group. The army said it had arrested 19 more members of the group on Saturday.
Israel’s defense minister said dozens of the group’s rocket facilities in Gaza had been destroyed. Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the operation thwarted an imminent attack by Islamic Jihad, which is backed by Iran and designated a terrorist organization by the West. Read more
Israeli political analysts said the military operation offered Lapid an opportunity to bolster his security credentials ahead of the Nov. 1 election.
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Writing by Maayan Lubell, additional reporting by Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo, Amir Cohen in Sderot and Eli Belzon in Ashkelon; edited by Robert Birsel, Jason Neely and Christina Fincher
Our standards: the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Nidal Al-Mughrabi
Thomson Reuters
A 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.