Israel continues to strike the Islamic Jihad organization in the Gaza Strip on Friday, August 5, and, according to estimates, fifteen militants were killed during this “preventive attack”. Islamic Jihad, an organization considered terrorist by Israel, the European Union and the United States, has confirmed the death of one of its leaders, Taysir al-Jabari. The Gaza Health Ministry, for its part, reported ten dead, “including a five-year-old girl,” and 55 wounded.
According to Palestinian witnesses and security sources, the first salvo of Israeli strikes was carried out, in particular, on Khan Yunis and a residential area in the center of Gaza City. In Gaza, AFP journalists saw wounded people evacuated by emergency services, firefighters extinguishing fires, and residents crowding into morgues.
“The Zionist enemy started this aggression and should expect that we will fight mercilessly… There will be no truce after this bombing,” Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ziad al—Nahala said in an interview with Lebanese Al-Mayadeen television. “There will be no red lines in this battle… Tel Aviv and other Zionist cities will become targets for resistance missiles,” he added. Hundreds of people attended Taysir al-Jabari’s funeral in Gaza in the evening. Rocket fire from Gaza in response
In response, rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, AFP journalists in the Palestinian enclave say. At the same time, the Israeli army indicated that alarm sirens sounded in the Israeli settlements of Yavne and Lakhish in the north of the Palestinian territory.
The Israeli raids took place after the arrest on Monday of the leader of the Islamic Jihad in the occupied West Bank, Bassem Saadi. The Israeli authorities feared retaliatory attacks from the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas Islamists and where Islamic Jihad has established itself well. The army has deployed reinforcements, including tanks, to the area adjacent to the Palestinian territory.
“To our enemies, and especially to the leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, I would like to insist: your time is running out. The threat will be eliminated one way or another,” Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in a statement. . Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid assured him that the security forces would act “against the Islamic Jihad terrorists in order to eliminate the threat they pose to the citizens of Israel.”
