Thursday, a day after the bloodiest Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank in nearly 20 years, the Israeli army and Palestinian militants exchanged airstrikes and rocket fire in and around Gaza.
Israeli forces raided the volatile West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday, killing 11 Palestinians, including a 16-year-old, and injuring over 80 others with gunfire. The incident prompted international calls for calm.
Hussein Al Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official, asked for “international protection for our people” and called the raid a “massacre.”
On Thursday before daybreak, Palestinian insurgents retaliated by launching six rockets into Israel from Gaza.
The sixth one reportedly hit an unpopulated area, but the Israeli army claimed to have been able to intercept five of them.
Following a call for “resistance forces” to react to the “major crime” in Nablus, the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks.
The Israeli forces launched airstrikes on numerous targets in Gaza two hours later, spewing clouds of dark smoke into the sky.
According to a statement from the army, the rockets were aimed at “a weapons factory” and a “military camp,” which are both operated by Gaza’s islamist rulers, Hamas.
Antonio Guterres, the head of the UN, issued a call for peace and cautioned that tensions in the West Bank had hit a dangerous new high.
“Our immediate priority must be to prevent further escalation, reduce tensions and restore calm,” the UN chief said.
“The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is at its most combustible in years,” he added, pointing to “sky high” tensions and the stalled peace process.
The assault on Wednesday, according to the Israeli army, was directed at a “hideout apartment” used by alleged militants who are accused of shootings in the West Bank. One of the wanted suspects, along with two other people at the location who had fired on the soldiers, were allegedly “neutralized.”
According to Israeli army spokesman Richard Hecht, the suspects and the army “exchanged fire… there were also rockets that were launched on the home.”
