2023-10-07 08:50:39
Hundreds of rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel this Saturday morning, ending a truce that has been generally respected since the end of a five-day war in May. The armed wing of Hamas announced that it had launched the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation. The shooting, starting from several places in the Gaza Strip, began before 6:30 a.m. (5:30 a.m. French time).
Who launched the attack?
“We have decided to put an end to all the crimes of the occupation,” Israeli declared Mohammad Deif, commander of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in an audio recording broadcast by Al-Aqsa TV, the television channel of Hamas, the Islamist movement. in power in Gaza. According to him, “more than 5,000 rockets” have been fired since this morning.
The Israeli military also said that Hamas was behind a “combined attack, including rocket fire and terrorist infiltration into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip.” She calls on people to stay safe and says an Israeli response is underway.
These rocket attacks left at least one dead, a woman hit from the Gaza Strip, announced Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. Aged around sixty, she was killed “by a direct hit”, indicates the organization. Another 15 people were injured in southern Israel.
In the country, warning sirens sounded in several towns around the Palestinian territory, but also deeper in the territory, to the north and east, according to the army. In images, we can see in places buildings hit by the shots.
Twice in the morning, sirens sounded all the way to Jerusalem, where an AFP journalist saw two rockets intercepted in the sky. Several explosions were heard there around 9 a.m. (7 a.m.). A rocket fell on the town of Yavne, south of Tel Aviv, where a man was slightly injured by shrapnel, according to Magen David Adom.
The Israeli army announced in the morning the closure of certain roads near the Gaza Strip.
When were the last attacks?
In May, Israel launched an offensive against Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, triggering a five-day war between the Israeli army, Islamic Jihad and other armed groups in the territory. These attacks cost the lives of 34 Palestinians and one Israeli woman. More than a thousand rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, most of them intercepted by the Israeli air defense system. Israel, for its part, had increased airstrikes on the small territory.
Other violence had since broken out. In recent days alone, two young men members of the armed wing of the Islamist movement Hamas were killed Thursday in an exchange of fire with soldiers. A third man was shot dead at the end of the day after opening fire on a car, according to information from Israeli authorities. And a 19-year-old Palestinian was killed Friday in clashes with Israelis in Huwwara, in the occupied West Bank. His funeral was marked by clashes during which nine Palestinians were shot and injured.
Since the start of the year, violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has increased and cost the lives of at least 247 Palestinians, 33 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian, according to an AFP count established from official sources. This toll includes, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians and three members of the Arab minority.
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