Air strikes between Israel and Gaza’s second-largest terrorist group, the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, continue to take place. On Tuesday, as part of Operation Shield and Arrow in the Gaza Strip, Israeli precision air strikes killed three senior members of the PIJ, including Northern Gaza division commanding officer Khalil Bahitini and Jahed Ahnam, the secretary of the PIJ’s military council. At the time, the terrorist leaders were preparing to go to Cairo, Egypt for meetings. The strikes also killed PIJ senior operative Tarek Az Aldin, who led PIJ communications and terror attacks on Israeli territory.
During a press briefing, the international spokesperson for Israel Defense Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht, said the targets had participated in recent attacks on Israel and had imminently threatened Israeli citizens. Earlier this week, Islamic Jihad fired 104 rockets toward Israel because one of its senior member had died while on a hunger strike in an Israeli prison. Israel’s air strikes were, in part, retaliatory.
Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, where there have since been no Israeli soldiers, settlers, or military facilities. Since then, Gazan militant groups and the IDF have periodically clashed: This has included two ground wars, two air wars that lasted more than a week, and multiple skirmishes.
A day after Tuesday’s strikes, which Palestinian officials said killed ten civilians in addition to the three PIJ commanders, over 400 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. Since then, Islamic Jihad has fired over 800 rockets toward population-dense regions in Israel, and Israel taken aim at over 200 targets in Gaza, including rocket- and mortar-launch sites. It claims to have killed five senior PIJ figures since Tuesday. Most rockets from Gaza have been intercepted by Israel or have landed in open areas, though some have hit buildings. Multiple rockets reached the surrounding area of Tel Aviv on Thursday night, which was followed by the firing of mortars and rockets toward Israeli towns near the Gaza perimeter fence.
At least 31 Palestinians have been killed, including seven children, though the IDF says that at least three of the children were killed by misfired Palestinian rockets. Yesterday, an Israeli man was killed by a Gazan rocket that struck Rehovot, a city in central Israel, marking Israel’s first fatality in this week’s clashes.
On Friday, after a twelve-hour lull, sirens outside Jerusalem and alerts from Israeli radio and television warned the region’s residents of incoming rocket fire. The IDF has since continued its strikes against PIJ targets in Gaza.
Hamas, the terrorist organization that governs the Gaza strip, has not been involved in the exchanges, merely announcing its solidarity with the PIJ. Hamas told local media on Friday that Egyptian efforts to mediate a cease-fire are ongoing, but Israeli public broadcaster Kan said that Israel has pulled out of the negotiations upon Islamic Jihad’s launching of rockets toward Jerusalem.