Rocket and missile crossfire between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel: A fresh conflagration killed seven on the Palestinian side on Wednesday, bringing the number of people who have died in Gaza since the previous day to 22.
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This is the worst escalation between armed Palestinian groups in Gaza and Israel since August 2022, and Egypt, a traditional mediator between the belligerents, is working on a ceasefire.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “very concerned” and the United Nations wants to make sure “there is no further escalation,” said a UN spokesman in New York.
However, around 7:30 p.m., several dozen rockets were still being fired from Gaza into Israeli territory, according to AFP journalists, triggering rocket fire on the Israeli side before renewed airstrikes on Gaza.
Since the first rocket fire at the beginning of the afternoon, warning sirens have been sounding in Israeli towns around the Gaza Strip, but also in the east as far as Beersheba and as far north as Tel Aviv. The Israeli rescue services reported no injuries.
According to the Israeli army, more than 270 rockets had been fired at Israel before the latest salvos.
In a joint statement, Gaza’s armed groups said they had fired “hundreds of rockets” and promised the Israeli “enemy” “dark days” in the event of an escalation.
Islamic Jihad, which has been the target of Israeli attacks since Tuesday, had promised “retribution commensurate with the crimes committed against our people and our fighters.”
In Gaza, an area that has been under the control of the Islamist movement Hamas since 2007, the health ministry on Wednesday reported seven people dead in the raids.
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Among them was a 10-year-old girl whose remains were seen by an AFP journalist. According to this organization, four fighters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were also killed.
The Israeli army said it had targeted “more than 40 Islamic Jihad rocket and mortar launch sites” after attacking militants.
According to the Gaza authorities, 15 people, including four children, were killed on Tuesday. Islamic Jihad, described as “terrorist” by Israel, the European Union and the United States, announced the deaths of several of its fighters.
“Egypt is trying to facilitate a ceasefire,” an Israeli official told AFP in the evening on condition of anonymity. In Gaza, sources close to Hamas and Islamic Jihad confirmed these mediation efforts, corroborated by Egyptian sources.
Islamic Jihad “begs for a ceasefire,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.
The Gaza Strip, a cramped area plagued by poverty and unemployment where 2.3 million Palestinians live under Israeli blockade, has been the scene of several wars with Israel since 2008.
“I have a feeling that war is going to break out, there is tension and fear,” Monther Abdallah, a 50-year-old Gaza resident, told AFP.
Around the Palestinian territory, residents of Israeli towns have taken shelter in temporary shelters and schools are closed within a 40-kilometer radius, according to Israel Public Broadcaster.
Amos Guetta, a 58-year-old resident of Ashkelon, told AFP he was both “fearful and pleased that something was being done to prevent the rocket attacks.”
“We are ready for a possible enhanced operation and heavy attacks on Gaza,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Gunfire erupted between Gaza and Israel last week after an Islamic Jihad official died on hunger strike in an Israeli prison.
In August 2022, three-day clashes between Israel and Islamic Jihad killed 49 Palestinians, including at least 19 children, according to the United Nations. About 200 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, wounding three.
In the West Bank, an area occupied by Israel since 1967, two members of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing were killed in an Israeli invasion near Jenin (north) on Wednesday.
At least 132 Palestinians, 19 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
These statistics include combatants and civilians, including minors, on the Palestinian side and mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority on the Israeli side.