Israel yesterday killed three senior commanders of the militant Islamic Jihad group in targeted airstrikes, the nation’s military said.
Palestinian health officials said that 12 people were killed in all, including the commanders, their wives, several of their children and others nearby.
The strikes hit the top floor of an apartment building in Gaza City and a house in the southern city of Rafah.
Photo: AFP
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that 20 people were injured and that ambulances were continuing to evacuate people from the targeted areas.
Airstrikes continued in the early hours, targeting militant training sites.
In anticipation of Palestinian rocket attacks in response to the airstrikes, the Israeli military advised residents of communities within 40km of Gaza to stay close to designated bomb shelters.
Photo: AFP
The military said that the three targeted men had been responsible for recent rocket fire toward Israel.
It identified them as Khalil Bahtini, the Islamic Jihad commander for northern Gaza Strip; Tareq Izzeldeen, the group’s intermediary between its Gaza and West Bank members; and Jehad Ghanam, the secretary of the Islamic Jihad’s military council.
The Islamic Jihad, which is smaller than Gaza’s ruling Hamas group, confirmed that the three were among the dead.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said that Israel would “pay the price” for the killings.
“Assassinating the leaders with a treacherous operation will not bring security to the occupier, but rather more resistance,” Haniyeh said in a statement.
The airstrikes came at a time of boiling tensions between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip.
It is linked, in part, to violence in the occupied West Bank, where Israel has been conducting near-daily raids for months to detain Palestinians suspected in planning or carrying out attacks on Israelis.
Last week, Gaza militants fired several salvos of rockets toward southern Israel, and the Israeli military responded with airstrikes following the death of a hunger-striking senior member of the Islamic Jihad in Israeli custody.
The exchange of fire ended with a ceasefire mediated by Egypt, the UN and Qatar.
The airstrikes are similar to ones last year in which Israel bombed locations housing commanders of the Islamic Jihad group, setting off a three-day blitz that saw the group lose its two top commanders and other dozens of militants.
So far, 105 Palestinians, about half of them are militants or alleged attackers, were killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the start of this year, an Associated Press tally showed.
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