Israel and Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip clashed Thursday (February 23rd) firing rockets and missiles in the aftermath of the deadliest military incursion into the occupied West Bank since 2005.
Israeli forces on Wednesday killed 11 Palestinians, including a 16-year-old boy, and, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, wounded more than 80 people during this operation in Nablus (North).
Very “flammable” situation
According to a recurring scenario, this violence was followed in the night by rocket fire from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, followed by Israeli airstrikes, at dawn, on this territory under the control of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas since 2007.
No casualties were immediately recorded following this new pass of arms, which comes almost two months after the inauguration of a new government in Israel, one of the most right-wing in the history of Israel. Israel.
Led by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, it is notably made up of supporters of a hard line vis-à-vis the Palestinians.
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After the operation in Nablus, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the situation in the West Bank was "
the most inflammable in years
".
“
Our immediate priority must be to prevent further escalation, reduce tensions and restore calm
,” he added, even before the exchanges of fire between Gaza and Israel.
Paris urged "
all actors to refrain from any action that could feed (the) spiral
" of violence and the United States said it was "
extremely concerned
" by the level of violence in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel.
After the Israeli raid, the Palestinian Minister of Civil Affairs, Hussein al-Sheikh, denounced a "
premeditated and barbaric criminal act
" and called on the international community to "
intervene immediately
".
In Nablus and other cities in the West Bank, but also in East Jerusalem, occupied and annexed by Israel, businesses are closed Thursday morning at the call of a general strike, according to AFP journalists.
61 Palestinians dead since the beginning of the year
Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 61 Palestinians (including members of armed groups and civilians including minors) and nine civilians (including three minors) and an Israeli policeman as well as a Ukrainian, according to an AFP count compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
On Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry announced the death of a 30-year-old Palestinian man who was shot and injured earlier in February in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.
In Gaza, another Palestinian territory, under Israeli blockade since 2007, six rockets were fired before dawn towards Israel, according to the Israeli army.
These shootings were claimed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which had called on "
the resistance forces
" to respond "
without hesitation
" to the "
major crime
" committed according to him by the Israeli army in Nablus.
The Israeli army said it intercepted five rockets using its air defense system.
It then carried out airstrikes against several targets in the Gaza Strip, targeting, it said, "
a weapons manufacturing plant
" and a "
military camp
" both belonging to Hamas.
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Wednesday afternoon in Nablus, a compact crowd in which there were armed men took part in the funerals of nine of those killed in the Israeli military operation.
A tenth death was buried in the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Balata.
The eleventh dead, aged 66, died in the evening as a result of tear gas inhalation, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Qassem Daghlas, director of the Rafidia hospital in Nablus, told AFP that four of the Palestinians injured on Wednesday were still in intensive care.
According to the Israeli army, its operation carried out on Wednesday in the Palestinian autonomous sector in Nablus was of an “
anti-terrorist
” nature.
"
Three suspects wanted and involved in armed attacks (in the West Bank) and planning attacks in the immediate future (have) been neutralized
" during this raid, she said.
Islamic Jihad said one of the local commanders of its military wing was among the dead.
According to the armed group Areen al-Oussoud ("
The Den of the Lions
"), based in Nablus, six fighters from different Palestinian factions are among the 11 dead.
Israeli forces have been stepping up for nearly a year what they present as " anti-terrorist
" operations
in search of "
suspects
" in the northern West Bank, particularly in Nablus and Jenin, strongholds of Palestinian armed groups.
