(Gaza) Rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Wednesday, shortly after fresh Israeli strikes in Palestinian territory left one dead, bringing the number of people killed in Israeli raids since Tuesday to 16.
Journalists in Gaza reported dozens of rockets fired at Israel, where the warning sirens sounded in particular in the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon according to the Israeli army.
Shortly before, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced the death of one person in new Israeli strikes. Another was seriously injured.
The Israeli army said it struck a rocket launch site belonging to Islamic Jihad, after targeting members of the Palestinian movement in Khan Younis (south).
Fifteen people, including four children, were killed Tuesday by Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Islamic Jihad, described as “terrorist” by Israel, the European Union and the United States, announced that several of its fighters had been killed in these strikes, the Israeli army presenting them as masterminds of the movement, involved in anti-Israeli operations.
Controlled since 2007 by Hamas, the Gaza Strip, a cramped territory undermined by poverty and unemployment where 2.3 million Palestinians have been crammed under an Israeli blockade for 16 years, has been the scene of several wars with Israel since 2008.
Two dead in the West Bank
The Islamic Jihad, very present in Gaza but also in the north of the occupied West Bank, stronghold of Palestinian armed factions, had promised Wednesday morning to the “enemy” Israeli a “response of the same magnitude as the crimes against our people and our fighters “.
In the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967, two members of the Palestinian group were killed in the morning during an Israeli incursion into Qabatiyah, a town near Jenin (north). Ahmed Assaf, 19, and Rani Qatanat, 24, were members of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the organization said.
A 17-year-old boy was also shot in the abdomen and chest, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry, which said the wounds were “very serious”.
Before dawn on Wednesday, assailants in a car opened fire on soldiers in Qabatiyah, during an operation to arrest a “wanted suspect”, the Israeli army said, adding that “the soldiers retaliated by shooting at the two assailants and killing them”.
“Devastating response”
Around Gaza, residents of neighboring Israeli towns have taken refuge in shelters, on the instructions of the Civil Defense. Schools are closed within a 40 kilometer radius of the Palestinian territory, according to Israeli public radio.
Israeli security officials are preparing “for any escalation scenario, on more than one front,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
And to add: “I say to our enemies: any escalation on your part will be the subject of a devastating response on our part”.
These events come after other violence last week, triggered by the death in an Israeli prison of an Islamic Jihad leader on hunger strike.
After exchanges of fire between armed groups in Gaza and Israel, a truce was announced.
Since the beginning of the year, at least 126 Palestinians, 19 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources .
These statistics include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.
In August 2022, three days of clashes between Israel and Islamic Jihad caused the death of 49 Palestinians, including 12 members of Islamic Jihad according to the movement, and at least 19 children according to the UN. About 200 rockets were fired by Islamic Jihad from Gaza into Israel, injuring three.