(CNN) – Israel’s army and Palestinian militants engaged in heavy cross-border shelling on Wednesday, with hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched deadly attacks on alleged Islamic Jihad Organization targets along the strip.
The latest violence came a day after Israeli military airstrikes killed three leaders of the Palestinian militant group and ten other Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza and prompted threats of retaliation.
Israel is bombing Islamic Jihad operatives and infrastructure, and using unmanned drones for surveillance while monitoring militants’ preparations for launching the rockets, IDF chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Wednesday.
At least seven Palestinians were killed in the airstrikes on Wednesday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said.
Hamas, the Palestinian militant movement that rules the Gaza Strip, issued a statement on Wednesday strongly stating that its forces were firing rockets at Israel, shortly after the IDF firmly said it did not believe Hamas do this.
“The Palestinian resistance, with all its factions, led by the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, is now engaging in a cohesive manner, teaching the enemy a lesson they will not forget and affirming that Palestinian blood is not cheap,” reads the statement, issued by Muhammad al-Buraim, an official with the Joint Resistance Committees in Palestine.
The statement appeared to dismiss IDF chief spokesman Hagari’s claim that the IDF had only seen Islamic Jihad and not Hamas launch rockets.
Later Wednesday, the IDF said “at least 270 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel,” IDF spokesman Maj. Nir Dinar told CNN via text message as of 9:25 a.m. ET.
Of those rockets, 62 were intercepted by Israel’s missile defense system and three hit populated areas, the IDF spokesman said, adding that 65 rockets missed their target and landed in Gaza.
The IDF said fighter jets and helicopters had attacked more than 40 Islamic Jihad terrorist rocket and mortar launchers throughout the Gaza Strip, adding that they continue to target rocket launchers and other posts owned by the militant organization.
Civilians in Israel have been urged to act in accordance with special instructions posted on the National Emergency Portal.
Mahmoud Hams/AFP/Getty Images
Smoke rises after renewed Israeli military attacks on Gaza on May 10, 2023.
Ahmed Zakot/Portal
Paramedics transport a victim to Shifa Hospital after Tuesday’s deadly Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
Over half a million Israelis were in or near temporary shelters, IDF spokesman Hagari said just after 2 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET) Wednesday.
The suspects were on their way to a rocket launch site in the city of Khan Younis on Wednesday, the IDF said. The Gaza Health Ministry said one person was killed in Wednesday’s attack. It named him Muhammad Yusuf Saleh Abu Ta’ima, 25, and said he was killed in the bombing east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
A CNN producer in Gaza reported explosions in Khan Younis, Rafah and northern Gaza.
Shortly thereafter, he saw at least six rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. Sirens sounded warning of incoming rockets in the southern Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon and in the Lachish region, all near the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said. Later, sirens wailed in Tel Aviv, Israel’s capital on the Mediterranean coast, warning of possible rocket fire.
Nine rockets fired at the city of Sderot were all intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, the Sderot municipality said on Wednesday. The city said there were no reports of casualties or property damage.
The nearby city of Ashkelon also said it had no reports of injuries or damage.
One of the three Islamic Jihad commanders killed on Tuesday was working on skills to launch rockets from the West Bank into Israel, IDF chief spokesman Hagari said at the time.
Rockets have never been fired at Israel from the West Bank.
Mohammed Salem/Portal
Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel on Wednesday swept across the sky.
Islamic Jihad confirmed that three of its commanders were killed along with their wives and children in the night operation.
The commanders killed were Jihad Shaker Al-Ghannam, Secretary of the Al-Quds Forces Military Council; Khalil Salah al Bahtini, commander of the northern region of the al-Quds Forces; and Ezzedine, one of the leaders of the West Bank military wing of Al-Quds Brigades, the group said.
Hagari said the operation had been planned since last Tuesday, when Islamic Jihad fired more than 100 rockets at Israel after the death of its former spokesman during a hunger strike in an Israeli prison.
However, the IDF did not have the “conditions of engagement” until overnight on Tuesday.
The IDF launched another attack on Tuesday, saying its air force struck “an Islamic Jihad terrorist group” in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said two people were killed and two others injured in the attack east of Khan Younis. However, they have not yet identified them, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 15 on Tuesday.