The Israeli army and Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip clashed with missiles before dawn on Thursday, less than 36 hours after a visit by the American secretary of state who came to plead for a de-escalation.
These clashes took place between 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. Thursday (12:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. GMT), according to AFP journalists in Gaza, and remained limited.
The Israeli airstrikes were expected after a Palestinian rocket was fired at nightfall on Wednesday, intercepted by the anti-aircraft defense system, Israel having a habit of not leaving such attacks unanswered.
Emergency services reported no casualties on either side.
According to local Palestinian security sources, the Israeli strikes hit a training center of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the center of the Strip. Gaza, and another southwest of Gaza City.
In a statement, the army said that fighter jets had "hit a center for the production [and] storage of chemical raw materials used for a rocket production line" belonging to Hamas and "a center for the manufacture of weapons", both located in the center of the Gaza Strip, a micro-territory of 2.3 million inhabitants under Israeli blockade since Hamas took power there in 2007.
"Summer camp"
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular Palestinian armed group, claimed between these two series of strikes a barrage of rockets [...] in response to the Zionist aggression", causing the sirens to go off alert in Sderot, a city in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir linked the first Palestinian rocket fire to his repeated statements about the need in his eyes to toughen the conditions of Palestinian so-called "security" detainees.
The shooting "will not dampen my resolve to continue to act to remove the camp-like conditions enjoyed by murderous terrorists," he said.
On the night of January 26 to 27, the Israeli army had already carried out strikes against the infrastructure of the Islamist movement Hamas in power in Gaza, after firing rockets into Israeli territory.
There had been no casualties.
These exchanges of fire followed a new Israeli military raid in the northern West Bank (territory occupied by Israel since 1967) which left at least nine dead, including combatants and a civilian in her 60s, in the Jenin refugee camp.
On the evening of January 27, a Palestinian assailant killed six Israelis and a Ukrainian woman near a synagogue during the prayers at the beginning of Shabbat in East Jerusalem, a sector of the Holy City occupied and annexed by Israel.
And the next day, a 13-year-old Palestinian shot and wounded two Israelis, a father and his son, also in East Jerusalem, before being injured and arrested.
Two Palestinians were then killed in the West Bank on Sunday and Monday, the first by the guards of an Israeli settlement, the other by the army.
"Restore Calm"
"All parties must take steps to prevent a further escalation of violence and restore calm," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday at the end of a tour of the Middle East during which he met with Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders.
Antony Blinken announced that members of his team remained in the region to continue discussions with a view to taking "concrete measures", "to lower the temperature, promote greater cooperation and strengthen security".
For his part, Daoud Chehab, a leader of the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, told AFP on Wednesday that a delegation led by the leader of the movement, Ziad al-Nakhalé, was expected Thursday in Cairo, "at the 'Invitation from Egypt'.
She will meet with Egypt's intelligence chief to discuss "various political issues, the situation on the ground and how to restore calm, especially after the latest escalation, which includes the assaults on Palestinian prisoners," it said. it detailed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected in Paris on Thursday to meet Emmanuel Macron.
The two leaders will notably talk about the growing tensions around Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian violence.
With AFP
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