The Hebrew state woke up on Wednesday September 16 under a "barrage" of rockets sent from the Gaza Strip, also the scene of Israeli retaliatory strikes.

The first rockets were fired at Israel on Tuesday evening on the occasion of the signing in Washington of agreements to normalize relations between the Hebrew state and two Arab countries, followed Wednesday morning by new fire and Israeli retaliatory strikes .

Wednesday morning, before dawn, sirens sounded in a string of Israeli towns bordering the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave of two million inhabitants under Hamas control and under Israeli blockade, according to the Israeli army.

A rocket fired Tuesday evening hit the city of Ashdod, located between Gaza and the Tel Aviv metropolis, according to local rescue services, which reported at least two minor injuries.

"Unfair" agreements

The shots coincided with the signing ceremony at the White House of the agreements to normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

In Washington, US President Donald Trump spoke of "a new Middle East" and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the agreements could "end the Arab-Israeli conflict".

But Islamic Jihad, the second armed group in the Gaza Strip after Hamas, said in a statement, released shortly after the rocket fire, that the "unfair" agreements would "push" the "resistance forces to continue. jihad ".

"We say to the Bahraini regime and to the Emirates that this normalization is a total betrayal of the Palestinian cause and the hopes of the Arab nation," said Ahmad al-Medalal, an Islamic Jihad official.

"There will be no peace, security or stability for anyone in the region without the end of the occupation and respect for the full rights of the Palestinian people," said PA President Mahmoud Abbas, in power. Occupied West Bank, territory separated from Gaza.

Little attended events

The Hamas movement, in power in Gaza since 2007, stepped up in August the launching of incendiary balloons and carried out several rocket attacks from the enclave towards Israel, which had responded with night air strikes on positions of this armed group.

But the two camps reached an agreement in early September, thanks to mediation by Qatar, to end hostilities and put back on track a fragile truce in force for about a year and a half.

Citing a "dark day," Palestinian factions called for demonstrations on Tuesday to denounce the normalization agreements.

But these rallies brought together only a few hundred people in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

"No to normalization with the Israeli" occupier, "The agreements of shame" or even "Treason", one could read on banners during a demonstration in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

In Gaza, demonstrators trampled on and set fire to effigies of Benjamin Netanyahu, King of Bahrain Hamad bin Issa Al-Khalifa and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

Normalization agreements only serve the interests of Israel and not those of the Palestinians, according to an opinion poll released Tuesday by a Palestinian polling center, 86 percent of residents of the West Bank and Gaza.

The Tel Aviv city hall was illuminated in the evening in the colors of the flags of the Emirates and Bahrain.

Ditto on the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem where the projections of the flags of these two Gulf countries also rubbed shoulders with those of the United States and Israel.

The town hall of TelAviv tonight, illuminated in the colors of #Peace 🇦🇪🇮🇱🇧🇭 https://t.co/rgSiv96RjY

- Embassy of Israel (@IsraelenFrance) September 15, 2020

With AFP

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