Israel carried out airstrikes on Friday in the Gaza Strip in response to two rockets fired from Palestine. The action comes a day after the Israeli army killed 10 people in the West Bank.
The Islamic Jihad group said the offensive carried the message that “the enemy must remain alert because spilled Palestinian blood is costly”. The episode threatens the truce negotiated in 2022.
The Israeli army claimed to have carried out at least two bombings against Hamas areas, after several rocket launches towards the south of the country. The explosions hit Gaza City, according to AFP news agency correspondents, and neither side has reported injuries so far – part of the rockets fired from Gaza were intercepted by the Israeli air defense system.
The raid that took place on Thursday, in the Jenin refugee camp, left nine dead – including an elderly woman. According to the Wafa news agency, a tenth Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces in a clash recorded during one of the demonstrations that broke out in Al-Ram, in the central West Bank, over the deaths in Jenin. Around 20 people were injured during the military operation.
Palestinian Health Minister Mai Al Kaila claims that before withdrawing, Israeli forces threw tear gas grenades into the pediatric ward of a Jenin hospital, suffocating some children. According to an Israeli army spokesman, “The operation took place not far from a hospital, and it is possible that the tear gas entered through an open window.”
The Palestinian Authority has called the West Bank raid a massacre and has announced it will no longer cooperate with Israel on security matters. An Israeli spokesman said the army carried out “an anti-terrorist operation” against Islamic Jihad, which has been involved in several attacks against Israel. Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas are considered terrorist groups by several western countries.
In a statement, the Consul General of Israel in São Paulo, Rafael Erdreich, said that, “given the inability of the Palestinian Authority to exercise order in the Jenin refugee camp, the place has long been a ‘no man’s land’ controlled by the most extreme Islamic terrorist organizations”. The diplomat also said that members of the Islamic Jihad were organizing a terrorist attack against civilians and admitted that, in the Israeli reaction, “unfortunately a Palestinian woman was accidentally killed”.
The Brazilian government, in a note, expressed condolences to the relatives of the victims, solidarity with the people and government of Palestine and said it was following the latest events with concern.
“Brazil reiterates its commitment to a two-state solution, with Palestine and Israel living together in peace and security and within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders. To this end, the Brazilian government urges both parties to refrain from actions that affect the mutual trust necessary for the urgent resumption of dialogue for a negotiated solution to the conflict.”
According to the United Nations, this is the highest number of deaths in a single Israeli operation in the West Bank since the actions began to be recorded in 2005. The US Department of State announced that the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, will travel next week to Israel and the West Bank to “reduce tensions”. The UAE government, which normalized relations with Israel in 2020, condemned the attack and called for a meeting of the UN Security Council.
Since the beginning of the year, 30 Palestinians — civilians or members of armed groups — have died in violent incidents involving Israeli security forces or civilians. The Jenin camp, created in 1953, is home to around 20,000 refugees, according to UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugees. The Israeli army, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967, carries out almost daily operations in that territory, mainly in the sectors of Jenin and Nablus, strongholds of armed groups.
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