The Israeli army announced on Saturday the arrest of 19 members of Islamic Jihad and new strikes on Gaza. Air raids presented as a “preventive attack” while the Jewish state has been targeted by rocket fire since the arrest of a leader of the organization in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces expanded their offensive against Islamic Jihad on Saturday August 6 by announcing the arrest of 19 members of this armed organization in the West Bank and by launching new strikes against it in Gaza.
Twenty people were arrested by soldiers and Shin Bet security service agents in operations on Saturday morning, “including 19 members associated with the Palestinian terrorist organization Islamic Jihad”, the Israeli army said. in a press release.
Israel has been carrying out strikes on the Gaza Strip since Friday afternoon, and Islamic Jihad has sent rockets into the Jewish state.
Israel presented the raids as a ‘pre-emptive strike’ against Islamic Jihad, days after the organization’s leader was arrested in the occupied West Bank who raised fears of retaliatory action, an Israeli military spokesman said. , Richard Hecht.
‘Over 100 rockets’ fired at Israel
Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed Islamist group, has a strong presence in Gaza and the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
The Israeli army estimated that it had killed 15 Islamic Jihad fighters in its strikes that began Friday afternoon, targeting in particular weapons manufacturing sites, according to it. The Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported ten dead, “including a five-year-old girl”, and 79 injured.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, said it launched “more than a hundred rockets” on Israeli soil on Friday as a “first response” to Israeli strikes that killed one of the group’s leaders, Tayssir Al-Jabari. .
In Israel, no casualties or damage were identified by the rocket fire, the army reported. It reported 70 projectiles fired from Gaza, eleven of which landed inside the Palestinian enclave under Israeli blockade.
This is the worst confrontation between the Jewish state and armed organizations in Gaza since the eleven-day war in May 2021, which left 260 dead on the Palestinian side, including combatants, and 14 dead in Israel, including a soldier, according to local authorities.
With AFP
Source: France 24
