JERUSALEM, May 10 (Portal) – Israel launched a second day of attacks on Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza on Wednesday and Palestinian militants fired hundreds of rockets across the border and set off sirens as far north as Tel Aviv as Egypt began efforts to bring an end to it mediate to the fights.
The second wave of cross-border fire in a week came after Israel launched attacks against three Islamic Jihad commanders it said were planning attacks against Israelis on Tuesday after months of escalating violence.
Cairo, which mediated in previous rounds of fighting, has begun to negotiate a ceasefire, said Dawoud Shehab, spokesman for Islamic Jihad.
Israel is examining Egypt’s proposals, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told public broadcaster Kan.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a radio address that Islamic Jihad had suffered a major blow, but warned: “The campaign is not over yet.”
The Israeli military said it struck more than 130 targets, including rocket launch sites, as explosions were heard across the Palestinian enclave.
An overnight bombing of a building in Khan Younis’ southern Gaza Strip killed the head of Islamic Jihad’s rocket launch force, identified as Ali Ghali, and two other militants, the Israeli military and Islamic Jihad said.
Minutes after the airstrikes began on Wednesday, sirens wailed across Israel – mostly in border communities but soon in and around the commercial capital of Tel Aviv, 60 km (37 miles) north of Gaza.
More than 400 rockets were fired, Netanyahu said, a quarter of them missed in the Gaza Strip.
The joint command of Gaza’s militant groups, which includes Islamic Jihad and the enclave’s Hamas rulers, claimed responsibility for the salvoes.
However, Israeli military officials said they saw no evidence that Hamas, which is believed to have hundreds of rockets in its arsenal, had launched rockets itself.
[1/15] Security and rescue personnel work at the site where a rocket fired from Gaza landed in Ashkelon, Israel May 10, 2023 Portal/Amir Cohen
They said the Israeli attacks were aimed only at targets linked to the smaller Islamic Jihad group, an Iran-backed Gaza-based militant organization that has been increasingly active in the occupied West Bank for the past year.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stressed the need for de-escalation during a phone call Wednesday with Israel National Security Council Chairman Tzachi Hanegbi, the White House said.
“Sullivan …noted continued regional efforts to negotiate a ceasefire and stressed the need to ease tensions and prevent further loss of life,” the White House statement said.
CHILDREN AMONG THE DEATHS
A total of 24 Palestinians, including at least five women and five children, as well as three senior Islamic Jihad commanders and four gunmen have been killed since the fighting began, Palestinian health officials said.
A 10-year-old girl was also among those killed on Wednesday, but the circumstances of her death were unclear.
The militant groups said the rocket salvoes were in retaliation for the Israeli attacks, which they described as “a brutal and insidious bombardment of civilian homes that claimed several innocent martyrs.”
As rockets were fired, multiple trails could be seen rising over Gaza. Airborne explosions indicated that Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system had intercepted the attack, and there were no reports of casualties in Israel.
Last week, following the death of an Islamic Jihad hunger striker in Israeli custody, Islamic Jihad fired more than 100 rockets across the border and Israeli warplanes hit targets in Gaza.
Even before rocket fire began on Wednesday, up to 30% of residents in Israeli border communities had been evacuated as a precaution, community leader Gadi Yarkoni told Kan Radio.
In Gaza, shops and schools remained closed, and Israel kept its two commercial and passenger crossings into Gaza closed. The move would halt entry of goods, fuel and humanitarian aid, as well as patients being treated in hospitals in the West Bank and Israel.
Earlier Wednesday, Israeli forces killed two Palestinian gunmen who, according to the West Bank military, had opened fire on them. Islamic Jihad claimed the men as members.
Reporting by Emily Rose; Edited by Kim Coghill
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Nidal Al-Mughrabi