The exchange of missiles and rockets between Israel and armed groups in Gaza continued during the night of Thursday 11 to Friday 12, to a lesser extent compared to the previous three days, during which 31 people lost their lives. Egypt, the traditional mediator between the warring parties, is working to secure a ceasefire, at a time when international calls are multiplying to end the escalation, the most serious since August 2022 between armed groups in Gaza and Israel.
It began Tuesday with Israeli strikes targeting Islamic Jihad, a "terrorist organization" in the eyes of Israel, the European Union and the United States. Mohammed al-Hindi, head of Islamic Jihad's political department that arrived in Cairo on Thursday, said he hoped talks for a truce "will end today (Friday)."
Hope for an 'honourable deal'
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We hope to get an honourable deal that reflects the interests of our people and the resistance," he told AFP. Several sources close to the negotiations told AFP that Egypt had reached the beginning of de-escalation on the ground. Overnight, Israeli strikes on Gaza and Palestinian rocket fire into Israel continued, but in a more limited way, AFP journalists found.
The army said it had targeted several military installations and Islamic Jihad rocket launch sites. According to witnesses, three strikes hit the Rafah area in southern Gaza at dawn. In Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip, the last rocket warning sirens went off late Thursday evening, after sounding at regular intervals throughout the day.
Streets emptied and shops closed
In Gaza City, the streets were again emptied of their inhabitants, holed up in their homes, and most businesses closed on Friday morning. The Ministry of Health reported 30 deaths, including children, and more than 90 injured, since Tuesday. The deaths include five Islamic Jihad military commanders targeted by Israel, as well as fighters from the Islamic Jihad movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), another armed group.
In Israel, one person was killed Thursday in Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv, by a rocket that hit an inhabited building, according to police. Emergency services reported five people wounded in Israel by shrapnel since the first Palestinian fire was fired on Wednesday. According to the army, 866 rockets were fired at Israel, 260 of which were intercepted by the air defense system.
Call for a "ceasefire"
The army says 25 percent of the rockets landed inside Gaza, killing four people, including three minors. AFP has not been able to get a reaction from Hamas and Islamic Jihad to these claims. Since the beginning of its "preventive" operation, the IDF has struck 170 targets of the Islamic Jihad organization, sites or members of the group.
A source in the movement told AFP on Friday that "one of the most important conditions for a ceasefire is that Israel stops assassinations in occupied Gaza and the West Bank." On Thursday, the European Union called for "an immediate ceasefire" and Washington urged all parties to "ensure that civilian deaths are avoided and that [...] violence is decreasing." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was following "with great concern the dangerous escalation" of violence.
The Gaza Strip, a territory plagued by poverty and unemployment where 2.3 million Palestinians live, has been under an Israeli blockade since the Islamist Hamas movement took control in 2007. The territory has been the scene of several wars with Israel since 2008. In August 2022, three days of clashes between Israel and Islamic Jihad resulted in the deaths of 49 Palestinians, including at least 19 children according to the UN. More than a thousand rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, wounding three people.
