Gaza militants launch rocket attacks following more Israeli strikes
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JERUSALEM — Gaza militants launched dozens of rockets into Israel on Wednesday afternoon, the first sign of promised retaliation for Israeli airstrikes that have killed more than a dozen people over the last two days. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia’s war in Ukraine. ArrowRight Air raid sirens sounded across central Israel, as far north as Tel Aviv. There were no immediate reports of injuries, although officials said at least one house in the city of Sderot was burning. More than a million Israelis were in shelters, the military said.
The rocket attacks followed several Israeli airstrikes inside Gaza on Wednesday, targeting what the military said were rocket-launch positions that were about to be used to attack Israel. At least one person was killed in those strikes, according to Palestinian health officials.
The military escalation follows an operation early Tuesday in which 40 Israeli aircraft simultaneously hit three apartment buildings across the enclave, killing three senior leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and at least 12 other people.
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Israelis and Gazans alike — grimly accustomed to military violence that follows a pattern of attack and counterattack — had been on edge Wednesday morning after an unexpected night of calm.
Some said the waiting was harder to bear than sirens and explosions.
The latest rocket barrage was fired by Islamic Jihad forces, an Israeli military officer said in a briefing. There was no sign that Hamas, the larger and dominant militant faction in Gaza, was actively participating. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have vowed that Israel would pay for its most recent attacks, including in joint statement on behalf of various Gaza factions.
Israel said it was focused Wednesday on hitting militant squads that were about to launch rockets. In one strike, using surveillance drones and attack aircraft, Israel struck a group it said was readying a launch near the separation fence in southern Gaza. One person was killed in that attack, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
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Schools remained closed throughout Gaza and in Israel within about 25 miles of the border, with the Israeli Education Ministry activating its remote-learning programs. On social media, Israeli families described spending the night in fortified safe rooms or shelters. Israeli police blocked roads in the area, and local governments were on emergency footing, with public shelters open as far away as Tel Aviv.
Gazans, after dashing out Tuesday to stock up on food, stuck close to home. Banks and shops remained shuttered. There are few public bomb shelters in the enclave, and residents know the Israeli strikes that almost inevitably follow militant rockets could land anywhere. More than 230 Gazans were killed in a two-week escalation in 2021.
“We live in a state of war without an actual war,” said Diaa Saud, 48, a carpenter waiting out the tensions in front of the Gaza City apartment where his eight children were sheltering. None of Wednesday’s strikes by Israeli planes were near his neighborhood.
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“My children do not go to schools, and they ask me about what will happen. Will there be war or what?” said Reem al-Sirhi, 31. “I don’t have an answer. I’m scared, and I try not to show it to the kids.”
Tensions ramped up early Tuesday when 40 Israeli aircraft simultaneously struck three apartment buildings across Gaza, killing three leaders of the Islamic Jihad group. The blasts killed the men and, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, several members of their families and three members of one neighboring family.
Israel said the three leaders were responsible for several terrorist attacks inside Israel and that one was primarily responsible for a fusillade of more than 100 rockets into Israel last week.
Palestinian factions inside Gaza, including Hamas, the dominant and governing group, pledged that Israel would pay a price. Israeli officials warned citizens for reprisals that could extend beyond the Gaza region to Tel Aviv or even along the hostile northern border with Lebanon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the nation Tuesday night, saying the military was prepared for fighting along more than one front.
“We are in the heat of battle and will need patience and the ability to stand strong in the coming days,” Netanyahu said.
The slow response from inside Gaza may be because the militant groups were caught off-guard by the Israeli action, which came less than a week after Egyptian mediators brokered a cease-fire between the parties, according to analysts on both sides. The groups may have been coordinating a joint response and hoping to ramp up the sense of unease among Israelis.
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“The state of waiting is a situation the Gaza Strip has not witnessed before,” said Mustafa Ibrahim, political analyst in Gaza City. “It may be positive or negative for the Palestinian factions.”
In Israel, the flare-up has allowed Netanyahu to head off growing disquiet within his governing coalition. He has faced, the first time in years, mounting opposition from within his own government and from the Israeli public, said Gayil Talshir, political scientist from Hebrew University.
“War always brings Israelis together and certainly right-wingers,” said Talshir.
The campaign comes after Netanyahu’s faceoff with unprecedented street protests, in which hundreds of thousands of citizens flooded the street in calls to stop the government’s planned judicial overhaul, repeatedly grinding the economy to a halt and threatening to impact reservist manpower from Israel’s relatively small army.
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The crisis dethroned him for the first time in over a decade from the top of public opinion surveys. Major Israeli TV channels showed that most citizens no longer believed him to be the best pick for leader of the country. Even an interviewer from the right-wing Channel 14 News, Israel’s version of Fox News, called on Netanyahu last month to explain why, despite his government’s solid 64-seat parliamentary majority, “something isn’t quite working out.”
The confrontation with Gaza has also helped assuage his hard-line coalition members, who include many far right critics who say Israel should take advantage of its mighty military and pulverize militant groups in Gaza. Following the pre-dawn airstrikes that killed three senior Islamic Jihad leaders on Tuesday, far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced that his party would end its week-long boycott of Knesset votes and shutter its week-old headquarters in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, set up in protest of the government’s “weak and limp” response to rockets from Gaza.
Balousha reported from Gaza City.
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Source: The Washington Post
