At least eight people, including a five-year-old child and a leader of the Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad, were killed on Friday August 5 in an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip, local health authorities said. About 40 people were also injured.
The Israeli army, for its part, estimated that fifteen people had been killed in its strikes. Israeli military spokesman Richard Hecht called the operation a“preemptive attack” against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and warned that she was not “not finished yet”. The Israeli army had announced earlier in the day to be “hitting the Gaza Strip” and target this organization.
“The Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine and its armed wing the Al-Quods brigades mourn the death of the great jihadist commander Tayseer Al-Jabari” in Gaza City, the armed group reported. “The enemy has started a war against our people and we must collectively defend ourselves and our people, we will not allow the policies of our enemy to undermine our resistance”reacted the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in a press release.
Arrest of a leader on Monday, borders closed on Tuesday
Witnesses and Palestinian security sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP) they saw several strikes, including one in central Gaza City. The raids come after the arrest on Monday of an Islamic Jihad leader in the occupied West Bank, Bassem Saadi. The Israeli authorities feared reprisal attacks from the Gaza Strip, an enclave controlled by the Islamists of Hamas where Islamic Jihad is well established.
Shortly before the strikes, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz claimed that Israeli forces “prepared for any action to be taken on all fronts, in the northern, central and southern regions of Israel”. “To our enemies, and particularly to the leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, I would like to insist: your time is running out. The threat [sur le sud d’Israël] will be eliminated one way or another”he said, according to a statement.
The Israeli army on Tuesday ordered the closure of border crossings, forcing thousands of Gazans, holders of work permits in Israel, to stay at home. The shutdown slowed the delivery of diesel fuel, usually trucked in from Egypt or Israel and needed to power Gaza’s power plant. This single power plant risks closing due to a lack of fuel, its director warned on Thursday.
About fifty people who normally leave the enclave daily for treatment have also been affected, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since 2007, the Jewish state has imposed a strict blockade on Gaza, an enclave of 2.3 million inhabitants undermined by poverty and unemployment. Israel and armed groups in Gaza have fought several wars, the last of which was in May 2021. Israel’s last strikes on Gaza were on July 19. The Israeli army had targeted a Hamas position after a shot from the enclave.