TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli and Palestinian activists in the Gaza Strip exchanged gunfire Saturday in the worst episode of cross-border violence since the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas last year.
Israeli airstrikes killed 11 people, adding a senior commander of the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who was killed in a targeted attack.
Israel has carried out several fatal airstrikes, targeting a senior commander of The Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The militants fired dozens of rockets at Israelis and villages, disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of people.
Here’s a look at the latest violence:
IN THE SHADOW OF HAMAS
Islamic Jihad is the smaller of the two main Palestinian militant teams in the Gaza Strip and is outnumbered by the ruling Hamas group. But it enjoys direct monetary and military aid from Iran and has become the driving force behind rocket attacks and other clashes with Israel. .
Hamas, which took control of Gaza in 2007 from the Palestinian Authority identified around the world, is limited in its ability to act because it has a duty to manage the day-to-day affairs of the impoverished territory. Islamic Jihad has no such tasks and has become the top militant faction, infrequently even undermining Hamas’ authority.
The organization founded in 1981 with the goal of building a Palestinian Islamic state in the West Bank, Gaza and all that is now Israel. It is designated a terrorist organization by the U. S. State Department. USA, the European Union and other governments. Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad has promised the destruction of Israel.
THE IRAN CONNECTION
Israel’s archenemy, Iran, provides Islamic Jihad with training, experience and money, but most of the group’s weapons are produced locally. In recent years, it has developed an arsenal equivalent to that of Hamas, with longer-range rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv’s metropolitan domain in central Israel. Airstrike sirens sounded in the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv on Friday, no rockets appear to have hit the domain.
Although its base is in Gaza, Islamic Jihad also has leaders in Beirut and Damascus, where it has ties to Iranian officials.
Ziad al-Nakhalah, the group’s top leader, in Tehran to meet with Iranian officials as Israel began its operation in Gaza on Friday.
OBJECTIVE COMMANDERS
This is not the first time Israel has killed Islamic Jihad leaders in Gaza. The commander he killed on Friday, Taiseer al-Jabari, replaced Bahaa Abu el-Atta, who killed through Israel in a 2019 attack. His death is the first high-profile assassination of an Islamic Jihad figure across Israel since the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip.
Al-Jabari, 50, was a member of Islamic Jihad’s “military council,” the group’s decision-making framework in Gaza. He was guilty of Islamic Jihad militant activities in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip during the 2021 war. Israel said it was preparing to launch an anti-tank missile attack on Israel.
His death follows Israel’s arrest of a senior Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank earlier this week. Bassam al-Saadi, 62, is a senior Islamic Jihad official in the northern West Bank. According to Israeli media, al-Saadi runs to deepen the group succeeds in the West Bank and expands its capabilities.
Al-Saadi spent a total of 15 years in various remains in Israeli prisons to be an active member of Islamic Jihad. Israel killed two of its sons who were also Islamic Jihad militants in separate incidents in 2002 and destroyed their home in a fierce war in the West Bank city of Jenin that same year.
“Once it touches the commanders, it will promptly touch the entire organization,” said Zvika Haimovich, former head of the Israeli army’s air defense force.
“This creates a wonderful mess in jihad. “
A DELICATE BALANCE
Since it took effect in 2007, Hamas has waged four wars against Israel, with the help of Islamic Jihad fighters. Aside from an outbreak this year, the border has been largely calm since last year’s 11-day war and Hamas appears to be on the sidelines of this existing conflagration, which may prevent it from turning into an all-out war.
Islamic Jihad militants have defied Hamas by firing rockets, without claiming responsibility, to increase their visibility among Palestinians while Hamas maintains the ceasefire. Israel holds Hamas guilty of all rocket fire from Gaza.
Hamas will have to walk a tightrope between containing Islamic Jihad’s fire on Israel and avoiding Palestinian anger if it cracks down on the group. As in beyond the outbreaks, Hamas will have the final say on the duration and violence of this series of fighting.
MAIN GUARDIAN
The existing struggle comes as Israel is mired in a protracted political crisis that sends the electorate to the polls for the fifth time in less than 4 years in the fall.
Interim leader Yair Lapid took office earlier this summer after the collapse of the ideological diversity he helped form, prompting the new elections.
Lapid, a centrist former TV host and author, lacks the security savvy that many Israelis must have for leadership. capable leader, or for having been hit by a long operation as the Israelis try to capitalize on the last weeks of summer.
Lapid hopes to overtake former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a security hawk who is on trial for corruption, in the next vote.
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Akram reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Associated Press Emily Rose in Jerusalem contributed.
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