This is the worst confrontation between the Jewish state and armed organizations in Gaza since the May 2021 war, which left 260 dead on the Palestinian side, including fighters, and 14 dead in Israel, including a soldier.
The escalation continues this Sunday between Israel and the Islamic Jihad movement, who exchange fire. According to the Palestinian authorities, 29 people were killed, including six children, killed in these new clashes, which Israel contradicts.
BFMTV.com takes stock of the causes of this renewed violence.
• The arrest of a leader of Islamic Jihad
It was the arrest of an Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank last Monday that led to this new cycle of violence. According to Israeli media, he is Bassam Saadi, an official of the Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Fearing reprisals, Israeli authorities said they were launching an operation in Gaza, a micro-territory ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement and where Islamic Jihad is well established.
On Tuesday, the Jewish state in particular ordered the closure of several roads along the border with the Gaza Strip, “due to a direct threat and finally to prevent a possible attack on civilians.”
A few days later, on Friday, the Israeli army said it was carrying out attacks in the Gaza Strip, claiming it was targeting Islamic Jihad, an Islamist organization considered terrorist by Israel, the United States and the European Union. A leader of the armed group, Commander Tayseer Al-Jabari, was killed in one of these attacks, the organization announced in a statement on Friday.
On the same day, Palestinian authorities reported an initial number of casualties, saying that four people, including a child, had been killed in the Israeli strikes. For its part, Israel estimated that 15 people had died, assuring that this “preemptive attack” “was not over.”
• Islamic Jihad’s response
In response, Islamic Jihad’s armed wing announced on Friday that it fired “more than 100 rockets” from the Gaza Strip into Israel, a “first response” to Israeli strikes.
In the night from Friday to Saturday, the shootings between the Hebrew State and the Islamic organization continued. A second assessment from the Palestinian side reported ten dead, “including a five-year-old girl”, and 79 wounded.
In Israel, no casualties or damage from the rocket fire were identified, the military reported. It reported 70 projectiles fired from Gaza, eleven of which landed inside the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
• Israel expands its offensive
The Jewish state expanded its offensive on Saturday, arresting some 40 Islamic Jihad operatives in the West Bank in several raids. The Israeli army also said it had “neutralized” the main “military” leaders of Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
As the exchange of fire continues this Sunday, and Islamic Jihad claims to have fired rockets at Jerusalem for the first time since the start of the escalation, Palestinian authorities have reported a new number of human casualties. The latter indicate that 29 people were killed, including six children, and 253 were injured. A version contradicted by Israel, which ensures that Palestinian children died on Saturday in a failed rocket attack by Islamic Jihad towards Israel.
• Egypt as mediator
The Israeli army has already announced on Saturday that it is preparing for “a week” of incursions into the Gaza Strip, saying that “the battle is only at its beginning”. At the moment, no negotiations “with a view to a ceasefire” are planned.
According to several sources, Egypt, a historical intermediary between Israel and the armed groups in Gaza, is trying to mediate to defuse tensions.
Source: BFM TV
