The Israeli army said it carried out airstrikes against the militant Palestinian organization Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night. At least nine people were killed, according to the Health Ministry of the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the radical Islamic Palestinian movement Hamas.
The Israeli army said the attacks targeted three Islamic Jihad leaders. Accordingly, it was Jihad Ghannam and Chalil Al-Bakhtani in the Gaza Strip and Tarek Essdine in the West Bank. In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, an AFP photographer saw the body of a man identified as Ghannam.
According to the Gaza Strip Health Ministry, women and children were among the dead. It did not provide any further information on the identity of the dead.
The airstrikes began just after 2 a.m. (1 a.m. CEST) and were still ongoing two hours later, AFP journalists reported. Another explosion was heard to the east of the city.
A journalist from the news agency AFP in Gaza saw the top of a building on fire after the night’s attacks. Ambulances recovered victims.
Islamic Jihad, a militant group with close ties to Iran, has a strong presence in Gaza. It regularly uses the area for rocket attacks on Israel. Israel describes Islamic Jihad as a terrorist organization.
The situation in the region has once again become extremely tense following the death in Israeli custody of a high-ranking representative of the militant Palestinian organization Islamic Jihad. The 45-year-old prisoner Chader Adnan died in Israeli custody last week after a month-long hunger strike. With Egyptian mediation, a ceasefire was agreed shortly afterwards. (AFP)
