Twelve Palestinians, including three leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, as well as children, according to local authorities, were killed in the early hours of today in successive Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.

The raids, which came less than a week after the announcement of a cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, raised fears of a further escalation of violence; the Israeli military called on citizens within a radius of 40 kilometers around the Palestinian enclave to ensure that they are permanently near shelters, in case of Palestinian rocket launches.

According to Chahal, the Israeli military, these strikes involved some 40 aircraft and targeted three members of the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Gaza City and Rafah, on the border with Egypt.

“We achieved the goals we wanted to achieve,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Islamist movement that Israel describes as a “terrorist” organization, confirmed in a statement the death of three Al-Quds Brigades officers. He named them as Jihad Ghannam, secretary of the military council of the Al-Quds Brigades in the Gaza Strip; Khalil al-Bakhtani, a member of the same council and commander of the Brigades in the northern sector of the enclave; and Tarek Ezzedine, one of its “head of military action” movement in the occupied West Bank, which he coordinated from the Gaza Strip.

The strikes killed 12 people, including “children”, and wounded 20 others, according to the health ministry of the heavily besieged coastal Palestinian enclave, which is ruled by the Islamist group Hamas.

“Revenge”

An AFP photojournalist saw the body of Jihad Ghannam at a hospital morgue in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. In Gaza City, a journalist from the same agency saw part of an apartment building destroyed and the body of a little boy in the morgue of Al Shifa Hospital.

“We did our best to focus” the strikes on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives who were the targets, Colonel Hecht said in response to a question about the child deaths. “If there are such tragic deaths, we will investigate further.”

Condemning the “brazen Zionist crime”, Palestinian Islamic Jihad said “the resistance will avenge the leaders” who were killed overnight.

Israel bears “the responsibility for the consequences of this escalation,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP.

“The enemy will pay the price of his crime,” said a statement signed by (exiled) Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, for whom “murdering leaders (of Palestinian organizations) will not increase the security of the occupation forces, but it will strengthen the resistance.”

Israeli airstrikes began shortly after 02:00 [σ.σ. τοπική ώρα και ώρα Ελλάδας] and lasted about two hours, according to journalists in the Gaza Strip.

They came less than a week after an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire deal was announced after violence escalated in less than 48 hours between the Israeli army and Palestinian Islamic Jihad over the death in an Israeli prison of a militant figure in hunger strike for three months.

A Palestinian had been killed in an Israeli strike and some Israelis had been injured by debris from a Palestinian rocket in the Israeli town of Sderot.

In statements released overnight, the Israeli military said it would “continue to act for [να προασπίσει] the safety of the citizens of Israel”.

“Arms Transfers”

The Israeli military presented Jihad Ghannam as “one of the most important leaders” of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, responsible “for coordinating the transfer of weapons and money between the terrorist organization Hamas” and its own.

For Khalil Bakhtani, the Israeli military said he was “responsible for launching rockets [από τη Λωρίδα της Γάζας] against Israel” in the last thirty days.

As for Tarek Ezzedine, it said that he “recently planned” and directed “attacks against Israeli civilians” in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, and that he had been sentenced to serve 25 years in prison in Israel for his “involvement”. especially in kamikaze bomber attacks in the 2000s.

Tarek Ezzedine, originally from Jenin in the northern West Bank, was released in a prisoner exchange in 2011 and deported to the Gaza Strip, the enclave controlled by Hamas since 2007.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has entered a resurgence of violence since the beginning of the year, after one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history took office in late December under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Since the beginning of the year, at least 120 Palestinians, 19 Israelis, a Ukrainian woman and an Italian have been killed in violent incidents in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an AFP tally based on official statements from authorities on both sides.

These statistics include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, among minors, and, on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, among minors, as well as three members of the Arab minority.