On Thursday, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed a fourth Palestinian commander. Bringing the death toll from the latest round of combat to 25. Israel braced for additional missile fire as Egyptian efforts to arrange a cease-fire failed. It was the deadliest clash between Israel and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza in months. With women and children among those killed. The inferno comes at a time when tensions and violence in the occupied West Bank have been at an all-time high.
The Israeli military carried out attacks against the Islamic Jihad militant group early Thursday. Killing Ali Ghali, a top leader in charge of the group’s rocket launching force.
According to military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, two more militants were killed in the hit. Even though no group immediately claimed them as members, and the rest of the facility remained undamaged. “The apartment was very precisely targeted,” Hagari explained. “I hope that this results in a reduction, a blow, and a disruption of Islamic Jihad’s rocket capabilities.”
25 Palestinians killed since then
According to Palestinian media accounts, the attacks killed at least two persons. Including the commander, on the top floor of a structure in a residential, Qatari-built complex in the southern Gaza Strip. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 25 Palestinians have been killed since the clash began.
Ghali was a commander in charge of Islamic Jihad’s rocket squad and a member of the armed group’s decision-making council, according to Islamic Jihad. The group has stated that it will only cease fire if Israel agrees to stop targeting its fighters.
Following fierce fighting on Wednesday, when missiles rained down on southern and central Israel and airplanes pummeled Gaza, Egypt, a regular mediator between the sides, reported that a cease-fire had been reached. However, with the fighting continuing into the early hours of Thursday, neither side looked to be backing down.
The Israeli military claims that in its strikes on 150 locations, it has honed in on militants with “precision strikes,” but children, including a 4-year-old, have also been killed. According to Hagari, the military spokesman, one-quarter of the missiles launched during this round of battle landed in Gaza, killing at least four people, including a 10-year-old girl, two 16-year-olds, and a 51-year-old male. That claim could not be independently validated right away.
