THE tension in the Middle East salt like a pressure cooker. Israel continued with its air strikes in Lebanon this Friday and continued to bomb the Gaza Strip in an escalation that has raised fears of a wider conflict following the violence around the hottest spot in Jerusalem. The picture has gotten worse the murder of young Israeli womenin the West Bank, shot dead.
In this climate of great tension in Israel and the region, an alleged Palestinian shooting near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank killed 20-year-old women and seriously injured 45 others, according to Israeli doctors.
The attack, which followed weeks of uncharacteristic unrest in the West Bank, indicated that tensions in Jerusalem could spill over into the occupied territories.
Tensions have risen following the continued evictions of Palestinians from Al Aqsa mosque by Israeli forces in the midst of the holy month of Ramadan.
Israel garnered widespread international condemnation after police intervened early Wednesday to violently evict Palestinian worshipers from Jerusalem’s mosque esplanade, the third holiest place of Islam.
Since the beginning of Ramadan on March 22, dozens of Muslim worshipers have repeatedly attempted to spend the night at the Al Aqsa mosque, a generally permitted practice. only during the last 10 days of Ramadanand the Israeli police entered every night to evict the faithful.
Wednesday’s surgery, which he left 350 detained according to the police and 37 injured according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, it led to an escalation of rocket fire from Gaza and Israeli shelling. Since then the tension has not subsided.
A barrage of rockets has rained down on Israeli sites from southern Lebanon, breaking a fragile truce in the region for years.
And while Israel’s northern and southern borders had returned to calm, Thursday and Friday’s Israeli air response against Lebanon – which analysts called the most serious cross-border violence since the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanese rebel group Hezbollah – threatened to take the confrontation to a new stage.
Israeli air strikes responded the unusually long barrage of bullets launched by Lebanon after Israeli police raids on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque sparked riots and provoked riots outrage in the Arab world.
Although the Israeli military was quick to clarify that its planes have hit places that belonged exclusively to Palestinian rebel groupsthe offensive could drag Hezbollah, a staunch enemy of Israel who controls much of southern Lebanon and has in the past defended himself as a defender of the Palestinians and the disputed city of Jerusalem.
The attack in the West Bank
The Israeli military said it was looking for those responsible for the shooting in the West Bank and set up checkpoints. No insurgent group immediately claimed responsibility. But Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem celebrated the attack “in retaliation for crimes committed by Israel at the Al-Aqsa mosque and in the West Bank.”
The Palestinian attack on the West Bank came as tens of thousands of Palestinians flocked to Al-Aqsa for midday prayers, the most important of the week.
Earlier in the day, Israeli missiles struck waste ground in the Lebanese town of Qalili, near the Rashidiyeh Palestinian refugee camp, according to a photographer and residents of the Associated Press, and they killed several sheep and caused injuries slight to some neighbors, among whom there were refugees.
Others hit a small bridge and a power transformer in the nearby town of Maaliya and damaged the irrigation system of orchards in the area.
“I was sleeping and suddenly I could feel nothing but the impact,” said Majid Abdelsattar, who lives in Qalili. He said the attacks damaged his parents’ home and the family’s citrus orchard. The Lebanese Army has indicated that found another rocket launcher on Friday after having dismantled several the day before.
The Israeli military said so he reinforced his infantry and artillery forces in a defensive move to “prepare for all possible scenarios”. A Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to inform reporters, said the Egyptian security forces they were working with Hamas and Israel to defuse tensions.
According to the military, it was clear that all sides wanted to avoid a full-scale conflict. “Calmness will be answered calmly,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the institution, told reporters.
The Esplanade of the Mosques, a powder keg
In 2021, the escalation of tensions also caused by the clashes on the Esplanade of the Mosques led to an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, which governs the Strip.
Violence returned to the compound on Friday. Chaos broke out at one of the entrances to the esplanade before dawn prayer when policemen with batons attacked the crowd of Palestinian faithful chanting pro-Hamas slogans as they tried to enter the club.
An hour later, according to the videos, those who left the prayer staged a large protest in the courtyard, with Palestinians raising their fists and chanting slogans in support of Hamas rocket fire, and police raided the building. inside the complex.
Police did not comment on the early incidents, but said their troops entered the sacred precinct after prayers. in response to “masked suspects” who threw stones at the officers at one of the doors.
To date, Palestinian insurgents have fired 44 rockets from Gaza, of which 23 have reached Israeli territory, the army said on Friday. The others, he said, either failed to launch, fell into the Mediterranean Sea or were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system.
Most fell in open fields in southern Israel, but one caused damage to a house in Sderot. No casualties were reported.
Bombing of Gaza
The army said so on Friday it returned to bombing the Strip and hit 10 targets which he described as infrastructure tunnels and centers for the production and development of weapons belonging, for the most part, to Hamas. No personal injuries have so far been reported in the enclave, but the Palestinian health ministry has indicated that one of the attacks caused damage to a children’s hospital in Gaza City.
Violence has reached new heights in the West Bank in recent months. Palestinian health authorities have estimated early 2023 as the deadliest period for the Palestinians over the last two decades.
Nearly 90 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the year, according to the AP tally. During the same period, 16 people lost their lives in Palestinian attacks on Israelis; all but one were civilians. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed are insurgents, but the death toll includes young people who protested police raids and people not involved in the riots.
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Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.