Islamic Jihad, based in Gaza alongside the larger and more powerful Hamas movement which runs the territory, is one of an array of militant groups that have been increasingly clashing with Israel over the past year. Images on social media showed Iron Dome rocket interceptor batteries being taken by truck to the area. Israel on Tuesday closed roads in towns near the Gaza border, told residents there to keep close to bomb shelters and said it was calling up some military reservists. While the West Bank and Jerusalem have seen a spread of Israeli-Palestinian violence over the past year, exchanges of fire across the fortified Gaza border have also intensified - most recently following the death last week of an Islamic Jihad leader on hunger strike in Israeli custody.
Israeli military spokesmen said the "pinpoint" operation involved 40 aircraft but they confirmed that women and children had been killed. Two men died later, Palestinian paramedics said, after Israeli jets hit what the military called an anti-tank team near the southern border of Israeli-blockaded Gaza. In all, at least 15 Palestinians were killed in the strikes, including a well-known dentist, his wife and 21-year-old son who lived in the same Gaza City apartment block as militant leader Izzeldeen, as well as seven other civilians including women and children elsewhere in the enclave, Palestinian officials said. "In the coming days we will all be required to show patience and resolve," Netanyahu told a press conference in Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed the security forces to prepare for any scenario, including an escalation on more than one front. Islamic Jihad confirmed the death of the commanders, Jihad Ghannam and Tareq Izzeldeen - who an Israeli military spokesman said orchestrated operations in the West Bank and sought to bring rockets to the city of Jenin - as well as Khalil Al-Bahtini who coordinated rockets fired at Israel a week earlier.Īs explosions rocked parts of Gaza, a coastal enclave where 2.3 million people live squeezed into an area of just 365 square kilometres, Israeli jets also hit rocket production workshops and military compounds, sending columns of smoke into the sky.ĭawoud Shehab, a spokesperson for the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, said Israel "must expect a response at any moment and anywhere". The strikes, targeting senior militant commanders Israel said had planned attacks from Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, were the latest in an extended period of Israeli-Palestinian violence stretching back more than a year.
JERUSALEM, May 9 (Reuters) - Israel killed three Islamic Jihad commanders in Gaza and at least 10 civilians including several children in surprise pre-dawn air strikes on Tuesday, drawing threats of reprisals and warnings of a further escalation in fighting.
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