At least nine Palestinians, including four civilians, were killed on Tuesday in separate
IDF attacks against targets in the Gaza Strip, marking the bloodiest day in a
week of escalating violence in the South.
On Tuesday evening, the IDF
spotted a terror cell in the midst of preparing to launch a long-range rocket
into Israel.
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Analysis: Gaza escalation shows IDF deterrence erodingThe IDF attacked the cell, killing four known terrorists who
military sources said were behind the Grad-model Katyusha attack on Beersheba
last month.
In the afternoon, IDF troops shot mortars into Gaza and
accidentally hit innocent civilians in the northern town of Sajaya. The troops
fired the mortars after they came under mortar fire from a terror cell that was spotted in
a field near the town.
Palestinians reported that four people – aged 58,
12, 16 and 17 – were killed in the strike.
The IDF said that the Southern
Command was investigating the incident, but stressed that Hamas was responsible
for choosing to operate from within populated areas.
Later Tuesday night, an official IDF spokesperson announcement said that IDF aircraft fired on a terrorist in the northern Gaza Strip. The statement said the terrorist was planning to send rockets in the direction of Ashdod.
A short time
earlier, four Kassam rockets exploded in open fields in the Sha’ar Hanegev
region. No injuries or damages were reported.
Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu issued a statement Tuesday night “expressing regret” at the loss of
innocent life in Gaza, saying it was accidental.
According to the
statement, Netanyahu stressed that the IDF mortar-firing had been a reaction to
Hamas shelling of Israeli civilians.
“It is unfortunate that Hamas
continues to rain down dozens of rockets on Israeli civilians intentionally,
while using [their own] civilians as human shields. Israel has no
intention of bringing about a deterioration of the situation, but at the same
time, the IDF will continue to act decisively to protect Israeli citizens,” the
statement read.
Hamas said in a statement that it would respond strongly
to Israel’s actions.
“The escalation will not pass unanswered. Escalation
will be met with escalation, and calm will be met with calm,” it said.
On
Tuesday morning, the IDF thwarted an attack after a tank crew spotted a group of
terrorists preparing to fire an anti-tank missile. The tank opened fire and hit
the group.
According to the Palestinians, 19 people were wounded,
including four terrorists, in an air strike the IAF carried out on Monday
night.
Hamas and several other Palestinian groups threatened on Tuesday
to avenge the deaths of the Palestinians killed by IDF gunfire in the Gaza
Strip, while the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank strongly condemned
Israel.
Hamas’s renewed threat came only a day after the movement said it
was interested in preserving the unofficial cease-fire with
Israel.
Following Tuesday’s incident, however, Hamas leaders and
militiamen said Israel’s “war crime” would not go unpunished.
Abu Obaida,
spokesman for Izzadin Kassam, Hamas’s armed wing, said that his group was
closely following the situation and studying its response to the
killings.
“The resistance can’t continue to practice self-restraint
indefinitely,” he said. “In the past, the resistance groups chose to abide by a
period of calm for the sake of our people.”
Abu Obaida said Israel would
pay a heavy price for its “continued aggression” against the Gaza
Strip.
The Hamas government said Israel alone bore responsibility for the
recent escalation. It claimed that the Israeli government was exploiting the
preoccupation of the international community and media with the current
uprisings in the Arab world to launch military strikes in the Gaza
Strip.
Taher a-Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government, also lashed
out at the British and German governments for allegedly justifying the latest
Israeli military strikes in Gaza.
Another Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu
Zuhri, condemned Tuesday’s killings as a “war crime” and said Israel would have
to bear the repercussions of its actions.
Hamas representative Fawzi
Barhoum called for a third intifada “to teach the [Israeli] enemy a lesson for
its crimes.”
He added that the German foreign minister was complicit in
the killing of Palestinian children because he had allegedly justified Israel’s
retaliatory attacks.
Several other armed groups in the Gaza Strip,
including Islamic Jihad, also threatened to resume attacks on Israel in response
to the killings.
The PA, for its part, accused Israel of having escalated
tensions ever since PA President Mahmoud Abbas launched an initiative to visit
the Gaza Strip to seek reconciliation with Hamas.
Nimer Hammad, political
adviser to Abbas, said Israel was carrying out the “ugliest form of terror”
against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Violence in Gaza
escalated on Saturday, after Hamas fired close to 50 mortar shells into Israel,
prompting IAF bombings and daily violent clashes along the
border.
France’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, issued a statement
expressing concern about the escalation in violence in Gaza, and urged both
sides to show restraint.
IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.- Gen. Benny Gantz
said that Israel was not interested in an escalation in violence with Hamas, but
that the IDF would continue taking action to defend Israeli
citizens.
“The State of Israel is not interested in an escalation, but at
the same time we do not plan on surrendering our right to act in self-defense,”
Gantz said. “If we will need to use offensive measures, we have the right to do
so and will know how to do so smartly and for as long as it will
take.”
IDF assessments are that the violence in the Gaza Strip will begin
to decrease in the coming days. The recent escalation is attributed to a
combination of events, including last Wednesday’s strike against a manned Hamas
post in which two operatives were killed, as well as the alleged abduction of
Palestinian engineer Dirar Abu Sisi from Ukraine. He is currently being held in
Israel.
Reuters contributed to the report.