Two Israeli women were killed in an attack on their vehicle in the occupied West Bank on Friday, after Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon were the latest result of a sudden rise in tensions in the Middle East.
Israel said it had attacked positions of the Palestinian movement Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon in response to dozens of rockets being fired into its territory.
Magen David Aadom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, reported the deaths of two women in their 20s in an attack in the West Bank. A third was “seriously injured”.
The Israeli army, which said the two victims were Israelis, said their vehicle was attacked in the northeastern West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967. She announced that she had blocked roads in the area and launched a search to find the “terrorists” who fired on the vehicle.
This attack comes after Israeli attacks in Gaza and Lebanon, launched on March 23 after a relative lull in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the start of Ramadan. They represent an escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese front unprecedented since 2006.
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The airstrikes began just before midnight in Gaza and lasted several hours, and the brief bombing raids in southern Lebanon took place around 1am GMT.
In Lebanon, the Israeli army claimed to have attacked three Hamas “infrastructures” in the Rachidiye area, where a Palestinian refugee camp is located near Tyre. This is the first time Israel has confirmed it has attacked Lebanese territory since April 2022.
Loud explosions were heard in the area of Tyre. “At least two shells fell near the camp,” a resident of Rashidiye camp, Abu Ahmad, told AFP.
On Passover Thursday, around 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon at Israel, injuring one person and causing property damage.
The shooting took place the day after Israeli police violently entered Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, to expel “extremist” Palestinians, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
‘pay full price’
Israel’s military says unclaimed rocket attacks from Lebanon were “Palestinian,” and it says likely Hamas or Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian movement, and Netanyahu has vowed to “pay a heavy price” to Israel’s enemies.
Israel and Lebanon are technically at war following various conflicts, and the ceasefire line is controlled by the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL), which is based in southern Lebanon. She said she had “called on all parties to stop all actions.”
“Both sides said they didn’t want war,” UNIFIL said in a statement.
For its part, the Israeli army said it “would not allow the terrorist organization Hamas to operate from Lebanon and will hold the Lebanese state responsible for any fire aimed (at Israel) from its territory.
The Lebanese army announced on Friday that it had dismantled a new launch pad in the south of the country for rockets that could be fired at Israel, and the Lebanese Foreign Ministry gave assurances that Lebanon wanted to keep “calm” in the south.
Britain, for its part, called for the “de-escalation” of “all parties”.
Hamas, which has been in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, has condemned “the appalling Israeli aggression” in Gaza and Lebanon and, for its part, has declared that it holds Israel “fully responsible for the consequences of such serious aggression.”
The Gaza Ministry of Health reported “damage” to the al-Dorra Children’s Hospital (east of Gaza City) after Israeli raids and condemned an “unacceptable” act.
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, spokesman for the Israeli army, told the press that this latest information was being looked into.
“Stop Escalation”
Hamas and Islamic Jihad informed Egypt, which normally mediates between Israel and Palestinian groups, on Friday that “Palestinian factions will continue to fire rockets if Israel continues its aggression and airstrikes,” Israel told AFP of the sources of these Palestinian movements in Gaza.
Earlier Thursday, the Shia Hezbollah, the de facto ruler of southern Lebanon, declared its support for “any action” that Palestinian armed groups might take against Israel.
The Israeli army also said it carried out several airstrikes in Gaza overnight, targeting 10 targets including tunnels, a heavy machine gun and weapons manufacturing workshops owned by Hamas.
In response, several dozen rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip. Only one hit an urban area, Sderot, very close to the Gaza Strip, damaging a house, according to Lieutenant Colonel Hecht.