Israel and Palestinian militants engaged in a heavy cross-border fire exchange on Wednesday, with hundreds of rockets launched from Gaza towards Israel after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out deadly strikes on what it claims were Islamic Jihad targets along the strip. The latest violence comes a day after Israeli military airstrikes killed three leaders of the Palestinian militant group and 10 other Palestinian men, women, and children, leading to threats of retaliation.
The IDF has been targeting the Islamic Jihad’s operatives and infrastructure, using unmanned drones for surveillance to monitor militant preparations to launch rockets, said IDF chief spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari on Wednesday. At least six Palestinians were killed in Wednesday’s airstrikes, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which revised its earlier count.
Hamas, the Palestinian militant movement that runs Gaza, issued a statement Wednesday suggesting that its forces were releasing rockets towards Israel, shortly after the IDF said firmly that it believed Hamas was not doing so. The statement read, “The Palestinian resistance with all its factions, led by the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, is participating now in a unified manner by teaching the enemy a lesson that it will not forget and confirming that Palestinian blood is not cheap,” issued by Muhammad al-Buraim, an official in the joint resistance committees in Palestine. The statement appeared designed to reject an assertion by IDF chief spokesman Hagari that the IDF saw only Islamic Jihad, not Hamas, firing rockets.
As of 9.25 a.m. ET, IDF spokesman Maj. Nir Dinar told CNN by text that "at least 270 rockets have been fired from Gaza towards Israel," with 62 intercepted by Israeli missile defenses and three falling in populated areas. The IDF said fighter jets and helicopters targeted over 40 rocket and mortar shells launchers belonging to Islamic Jihad terrorist across the Gaza Strip, adding that it is continuing to target launchers and additional posts belonging to the militant organization.
Over half a million Israelis were in or near shelters, the IDF spokesman Hagari said just after 2 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET) on Wednesday. The suspects on Wednesday were traveling to a rocket launch site in the city of Khan Younis, the IDF said. The Ministry of Health in Gaza said one person was killed in Wednesday’s attack. It named him as Muhammad Yusuf Saleh Abu Ta’ima, 25, and said he was killed in the bombing east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
The conflict escalated on Tuesday when Israeli airstrikes killed three Islamic Jihad commanders and their families in Gaza. One of the commanders killed was working on capabilities to launch rockets from the West Bank towards Israel, IDF chief spokesman Hagari said at the time. Rockets have never been fired from the West Bank into Israel. Islamic Jihad confirmed three of its commanders were killed in the overnight operation along with their wives and children. The commanders killed were Jihad Shaker Al-Ghannam, secretary of the Military Council in the al Quds Brigades; Khalil Salah al Bahtini, commander of the Northern Region in the al Quds Brigades; and Ezzedine, one of the leaders of the military wing of the al Quds Brigades in the West Bank, the group said.
Hagari said the operation had been planned since last Tuesday, when Islamic Jihad fired more than 100 rockets towards Israel following the death of its former spokesman while on a hunger strike in an Israeli prison. However, the IDF did not have the “operational conditions” until overnight Tuesday. The IDF launched a further strike on Tuesday, saying its Air Force targeted "a terrorist squad" belonging to Islamic Jihad in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza stated that two people were killed and two others injured in that attack east of Khan Younis, although they have yet to identify them, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 15 on Tuesday.