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Israel - Gaza: human toll, arrests, rockets to Jerusalem... update on renewed tensions

2022-08-07T06:25:06.367Z


The outbreak of violence between Islamic Jihad and Israeli forces continues for the third day on Sunday. The last balance sheet h


After sounding in Tel Aviv on Saturday, the sirens could be heard this Sunday morning in Jerusalem for the first time since the start of the armed escalation with the Islamic Jihad group.

In a statement, the organization said it fired several rockets towards Jerusalem on Sunday morning.

Le Parisien takes stock of the situation on the worst confrontation between Israel and armed groups in Gaza since the eleven-day war.

How did it start?

It was the arrest of an Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank earlier this week that led to this new confrontation.

Fearing reprisals, the Israeli authorities said they were launching an operation in Gaza, a micro-territory governed by the Islamist movement Hamas and where Islamic Jihad is well established.

After the first raids, the organization classified as terrorist accused the Jewish state of having “started a war”.

For Yaïr Lapid, it is a "precise counter-terrorism operation against an immediate threat", that of Islamic Jihad, "an auxiliary of Iran" wanting "to kill innocent Israelis".

Read alsoMiddle East: the reasons for the new military escalation between Israel and Gaza

In retaliation, about 400 projectiles - rockets and mortar shells - have been launched in the past 24 hours from Gaza, according to an Israeli official.

Most were intercepted by the missile shield, the army said.

In 2019, the death of an Islamic Jihad commander in an Israeli operation had already given rise to several days of deadly exchanges of fire.

This is the worst confrontation between the Jewish state and armed organizations in Gaza since the eleven-day war in May 2021, which left 260 dead on the Palestinian side, including combatants, and 14 dead in Israel, including a soldier, according to local authorities.

What human toll?

Twenty-nine people - including six children - have died in the Gaza Strip since the start of the outbreak of violence, the Ministry of Health in the Palestinian enclave announced on Sunday.

The ministry said the victims had been killed since Friday in Israeli strikes that also injured 215.

The Israeli authorities contradict this assessment and assure that several Palestinian children were killed on Saturday evening in Jabalia by a failed rocket attack from Islamic Jihad towards Israel.

"Israeli security forces have not struck Jabalia in recent hours," Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid's office said in a statement.

Since the start of its operation on Friday, Israel has claimed to target sites belonging to the Islamic Jihad, of which around 15 fighters have been killed, according to the Israeli army.

On the Israeli side, two people were slightly injured on Saturday according to rescuers.

Arrests and Killings of Islamic Jihad Members

Since Friday evening, the Israeli authorities have increased targeted operations against places sheltering members of Islamic Jihad.

Thus, about twenty members of the Palestinian group were arrested overnight from Saturday to Sunday by the Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank, the army announced.

The Israeli authorities announced on Saturday morning that they had already arrested 19 members of Islamic Jihad.

The Israeli army also announced on Saturday that it was preparing for "a week" of raids on Gaza, targeting the Islamic Jihad, which it said killed 15 fighters.

Among them, a commander-in-chief, Tayssir Al-Jabari, killed Friday in Gaza City, and Khaled Mansour, whose Islamic Jihad confirmed the death which occurred Saturday during a strike on Rafah.

In total, it killed eight people, according to the Gaza Interior Ministry.

On Saturday evening, Oded Basiok, the head of the Hebrew State army's operations directorate, issued a statement in which he claimed that "the senior leadership of the Islamic Jihad's military wing in Gaza has been neutralized". .

“The battle is only at its beginning,” said Mohammed Al-Hindi, a leader of this armed group which fires rockets towards Israeli soil, earlier.

Gaza, without power

Hostilities have already deprived Gaza, a small strip of land wedged between Egypt, the Mediterranean and Israel, of its only power station.

It "stopped (working) due to a shortage" of fuel, the electricity company said on Saturday.

The Jewish state has sealed off border crossings in recent days, effectively interrupting diesel deliveries.

Gaza's health ministry said the next few hours would be "crucial and difficult", warning it risked suspending vital services within 72 hours due to lack of electricity.

The UN's humanitarian affairs coordinator for the Palestinian Territories, Lynn Hastings, called for allowing "fuel, food and medical supplies" into the enclave.

Egypt seeks to establish a meditation

Egyptian sources indicated that Cairo, a historical intermediary between Israel and the armed groups in Gaza, was trying to establish a mediation.

During a speech, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he was working “tirelessly” to restore calm.

“We hope to reach a consensus for a return to calm as soon as possible,” an Egyptian source already explained on Saturday.

But on the ground, the exchanges of fire continued in the night from Saturday to Sunday.

Israel is "not currently conducting negotiations for a ceasefire," said an Israeli military spokesman.

For the moment therefore, it would seem that the escalation between Israel and the Islamic Jihad is only in its infancy and the various exits of the two parties point in this direction.

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2022-08-07

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