The Israeli army and Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip clashed before dawn on Thursday, February 2, less than 36 hours after a visit by the US Secretary of State who came to plead for de-escalation. These clashes took place between 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. (local time), and remained limited.
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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.
A “continuation of the cycle of aggression”
Hazem Qassem, spokesman for Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, called the Israeli strikes a “continuation of the cycle of aggression against [le] Palestinian people”and accused the Israeli government and “his extremist policy” to open the door wide to an escalation in the field.
The Israeli army warned for its part that it held “the terrorist organization Hamas responsible for all terrorist activity originating in the Gaza Strip” and that the movement should “to pay the consequences of breaches of Israel’s security”.
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According to local Palestinian security sources, the Israeli strikes hit a training center of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, and another southwest of Gaza City.
According to the army, Israeli warplanes « hit a production center [et] storage of chemical raw materials used for a rocket production line » belonging to Hamas and “a weapons manufacturing center”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.
Palestinian responses
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular Palestinian armed group, claimed responsibility between these two rounds of strikes “a barrage of rockets […] in response to Zionist aggression”, causing the triggering of warning sirens in Sderot, a city in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip. The al-Qassam Brigades, for their part, indicated that they responded to the Israeli strikes by firing “missiles from the ground”.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir linked the first Palestinian rocket fire to his repeated statements about his need to toughen conditions for so-called Palestinian detainees. ” of security “. This shot “will not dampen my resolve to continue to act to remove the camp-like conditions enjoyed by murderous terrorists”did he declare.
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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 killed at least nine people on January 26 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.
“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 officials.
Antony Blinken announced that members of his team remain in the area to continue discussions with a view to taking “concrete measures”, “to lower the temperature, foster greater cooperation and strengthen security”.
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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 in Cairo on Thursday, “at the invitation of Egypt” to discuss “the situation on the ground and how to restore calm, especially after the latest escalation”.
This comes after a particularly bloody year 2022, during which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict left 235 dead, nearly 90% of Palestinians, according to an AFP count.
