The suspension for the time being of Operation Shield and Arrow against jihadists in the Gaza Strip was announced on Tuesday morning by the Israeli army following nightly strikes in the area that killed three leading figures in the Palestinian Islamic holy war (jihad). organizations and at least 10 civilians, including children.

A total of 13 Palestinians, including women and four children, were killed in the early hours of the morning, according to local authorities, in successive Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.

The raids reportedly surprised even Israelis, as the Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu’s government did not consult with the country’s security council about the matter. The council is to meet on an emergency basis on Tuesday afternoon.

According to CNN, the Israelis decided to temporarily suspend their attacks on Islamist targets in Gaza.

The raids, which came less than a week after the announcement of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, raised concerns about a further escalation of violence from the Palestinian side. The Israeli military has urged citizens within a radius of up to 40 kilometers around the Palestinian enclave to make sure they are constantly near shelters in case Palestinian rockets are launched.

According to the Israeli military Chahala, these strikes involved about 40 aircraft, and they were inflicted on three members of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Gaza City and Rafah, on the border with Egypt.

“We have achieved the goals we wanted to achieve,” Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht told reporters.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Islamist movement that Israel calls a “terrorist” organization, confirmed in a statement the deaths of three officers of the Al-Quds Brigades. He named them Jihad Ghannam, secretary of the military council of the Quds Brigades in the Gaza Strip, Khalil al-Bakhtani, a member of the same council and commander of the brigades in the northern sector of the enclave, and Tareq Ezzedine. , one of his “military leaders” of the movement in the occupied West Bank, which he coordinated from the Gaza Strip.

The strikes killed 13 people and injured 20 others, according to the health ministry of the besieged coastal Palestinian enclave run by the Islamist group Hamas.

“Revenge”

An AFP photojournalist saw the body of Jihad Ghannam in a hospital morgue in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. In Gaza City, a journalist from the same agency saw the destroyed part of an apartment building and the body of a small boy in the mortuary of the Al-Shifa hospital.

“We did our best to focus” our strikes on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters who were the targets, Colonel Hecht said when asked about the deaths of the children. “If there are such tragic deaths, we will continue to investigate.”

Condemning the “arrogant Zionist crime,” the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization said that “the resistance will avenge the leaders” killed overnight.

Israel bears “responsibility for the consequences of this escalation,” said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem.

“The enemy will pay for his crime,” said a statement signed by (exiled) Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, for whom “killing the leaders (of the Palestinian organizations) will not increase the security of the occupying forces, but will strengthen the resistance.”

Israeli airstrikes began shortly after 02:00. [σ.σ. τοπική ώρα και ώρα Ελλάδας] and lasted about two hours, according to journalists in the Gaza Strip.

They come less than a week after an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement was announced after violence escalated in less than 48 hours between the Israeli army and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad over the death in an Israeli prison of a militant who had been on hunger strike for three months.

A Palestinian was killed in an Israeli strike and several Israelis were injured by fragments of a Palestinian rocket in the Israeli town of Sderot.

In statements released the day before, the Israeli military said it would “continue to act in the interests of [να προασπίσει] the security of the citizens of Israel.”

“Transfer of Weapons”

The Israeli military presented Jihad Ghannam as “one of the most important leaders” of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, responsible “for coordinating the transfer of arms and money between the terrorist organization Hamas” and its own.

As for Khalil Bakhtani, the Israeli military said he was “responsible for launching the missiles.” [από τη Λωρίδα της Γάζας] against Israel” in the last thirty days.

As for Tarek Ezzedine, it said that he “recently planned” and directed “attacks against Israeli civilians” in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, and that he was sentenced to 25 years in prison in Israel for their “involvement.” especially in kamikaze attacks in the 2000s.

Tareq Ezzedine, originally from Jenin in the northern West Bank, was released in a prisoner exchange in 2011 and deported to the Gaza Strip, an enclave controlled by Hamas since 2007.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has experienced an upsurge of violence since the beginning of the year, after one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history came to power in late December under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Since the beginning of the year, at least 120 Palestinians, 19 Israelis, a Ukrainian woman and an Italian have been killed in violent incidents in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to AFP figures based on official statements by authorities on both sides.

These statistics include combatants and civilian juveniles on the Palestinian side and mostly civilian juveniles on the Israeli side, as well as three members of the Arab minority.

Source: APE-MPE, CNN, The Jerusalem Post.