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Israeli Air Strikes Kill Seven People in Gaza Strip as Rockets Hit South
At least seven Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in the worst violence between the sides in more than two months after the Israeli army and militant groups in the Gaza Strip traded fire.
The fighting began when an Israeli air attack on Gaza struck a training base of the Islamic Jihad militant group. Five people were killed, Gaza emergency medical services head Adham Abu Selmeya said. The Israeli army said it fired on a squad that launched a rocket into Israel on Oct. 26 and which was preparing more attacks.
At least 20 rockets and mortars subsequently launched from Gaza hit several Israeli cities in the south, injuring three people, one of whom later died from his wounds, the army said. Another two Palestinians were killed in a later air strike, according to Abu Selmeya.
This was the first serious incident of violence in Israel’s south since it agreed with the Islamic Hamas movement to a prisoner exchange that freed Israel soldier Gilad Shalit on Oct. 18 after more than five years of captivity in Gaza.
“We don’t want an escalation of the situation,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told reporters while visiting Bosnia, according to the Jerusalem Post. Liberman said he hoped “with the help of neighboring countries, the international community and the Palestinian Authority, that the rocket fire will stop, otherwise there will be consequences.”
The death toll in Gaza was the highest since the last two weeks of August, when more than two dozen Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes following a terrorist attack near the southern resort city of Eilat. Hamas announced a cease-fire on all rocket attacks into Israel on Aug. 22.
Hamas Responsibility
The Israeli army said it holds Hamas responsible for attacks emanating from Gaza. Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union, seized control of Gaza in 2007, ending a partnership government with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a year after winning parliamentary elections.
“The Shalit agreement had nothing to do with the overall relationship between Israel and Hamas,” Gerald Steinberg, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv, said in a telephone interview. “A number of militant groups like Islamic Jihad operate independently in Gaza, and Hamas either does not want, or is not willing, to pay the costs, to rein them in.”
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina, in a statement published by the Palestinian Wafa news agency, urged Hamas and Israel to avoid an escalation. He called on Hamas “not to give Israel an opportunity to exploit the situation and relaunch a war on Gaza.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem at cbendavid@bloomberg.net; Saud Abu Ramadan in Jerusalem at sramadan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
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