Twenty-four people, including six children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the outbreak of violence between Israel and the Islamic Jihad group, the Health Ministry in the Palestinian enclave announced on Saturday.

The ministry said those victims had been killed in Israeli strikes since Friday.

The Israeli authorities contradict this assessment and assure that several Palestinian children died on Saturday night in Jabalia (north) due to a failed rocket attack by Islamic Jihad towards Israel, and not by the army.

Israel claims to target sites belonging to Islamic Jihad

“Israeli security forces have not attacked Jabalia in the last few hours,” Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s office said in a statement.

“It has been irrefutably proven that the incident is the result of a failed rocket launch launched by Islamic Jihad,” said this source, who said “to have videos”.

Since the start of its operation on Friday, Israel has claimed to attack sites belonging to Islamic Jihad, of which 15 fighters have been killed according to the Israeli military.

Two people injured by shrapnel

In retaliation, the Palestinian group fired rockets at Israeli soil, most of them intercepted by the Israeli anti-missile shield. Two people were slightly injured by shrapnel, according to emergency services.

This is the worst confrontation between the Jewish state and the armed organizations in Gaza since the May 2021 war, which in eleven days left 260 dead on the Palestinian side, including combatants, and 14 dead in Israel, including a soldier, according to the authorities. local. .

The Jewish state has imposed a blockade since 2007 on Gaza, a territory of 2.3 million inhabitants governed by the Islamists of Hamas.