Tag: Gaza

U.S. President Biden wraps up visit to wartime Israel with warning against being ‘consumed’ by rage

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President Joe Biden swept into wartime Israel for a 7 1/2-hour visit Wednesday that produced a heaping dose of vocal support, a deal to get limited humanitarian aid into Gaza from Egypt, likely by the end of the week, and a plea for Israelis not to allow rage over the deadly Hamas attack to consume them.

“I understand. Many Americans understand,” Mr. Biden said as he wrapped up his stay in Tel Aviv, likening the October 7 Hamas assault to the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people. “You can’t look at what has happened here… and not scream out for justice,” he said.


ALSO READ | Israel-Hamas war, Day 13 LIVE updates

“But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it,” he said. “After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

Mr. Biden urged Israel to step back from the brink, not just to ease growing tensions in the Mideast that threaten to spiral into a broader regional conflict, but also to reassure a world rattled by images of carnage and suffering, in Israel and Gaza alike. One million people have been displaced in roughly 10 days, according to the United Nations.

Mr. Biden’s mission was to display resolve for Israel and to diminish the likelihood of a wider war, while providing assurances that he was not overlooking the increasingly dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. Aboard the flight back to Washington Mr. Biden made progress when he spoke by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi who agreed to reopen his country’s sealed border crossing with Gaza and allow up to 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid supplies to cross.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Mr. Biden said roads near the crossing would first need hours of repairs, but that aid could begin rolling into the region by Friday. He suggested the aid could be distributed by international officials “which could take a little time” and added that, “if Hamas confiscates it, it’s going to end. We’re not going to send any aid to Hamas.”

“I wanted to make sure that there was a vehicle, a mechanism where this could happen quickly,” Mr. Biden said during a refueling stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. He added that el-Sissi was “very cooperative.”

“He stepped up. As did Bibi,” the president said, referring to Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu. But Mr. Biden was also in a mood to celebrate his own accomplishment, saying: “I came to get something done. I got it done.”

“Not many people thought I could get this done,” Mr. Biden said. “And not many people wanted me to be associated with failure.”

In fact, the president said officials had a discussion “of an hour or more” on “whether to go” before the trip began. ”Had we gone and this failed, then the United States failed. The Mr. Biden presidency failed, et cetera, which would be a legitimate criticism,” he said.

Aid moving into Gaza will accomplish a key objective for Mr. Biden, and the White House announced that the president will address the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday night to “discuss our response to Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel and Russia’s ongoing brutal war against Ukraine.”

Less clear is how far the trip would take the president in trying to tamp down volatile Mideast divisions, particularly after his plan collapsed to follow the Israel stop with an Arab leaders summit in Jordan.

His visit was full of signature Biden moments as he walked a careful diplomatic line. He doled out embraces to Netanyahu and to first responders, doctors and victims who witnessed nightmare moments. He spoke quietly of his own history with grief. He told the familiar anecdote about meeting every Israeli prime minister over more than five decades in elected office, starting with Golda Meir in 1973. He quoted an Irish poet.

“I come to Israel with a single message: You’re not alone,” Mr. Biden said. “As long as the United States stands — and we will stand forever — we will not let you ever be alone.”

His presence and comments to Israeli leaders held weight. Mr. Netanyahu said the president’s visit was “deeply, deeply moving” and said Mr. Biden had rightly drawn a clear line between the “forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism.”

“The civilized world must unite to defeat Hamas,” the Israeli leader said.

Mr. Biden arrived in Israel as the nations across the Mideast shook with protests triggered by an explosion Monday at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds.

The blast undid plans for Jordan’s King Abdullah II to host Mr. Biden along with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and el-Sissi. Abbas withdrew in protest of the hospital explosion; the summit was subsequently cancelled outright. Yet Biden’s presence in Israel prompted fresh outrage.

In Amman, a sign hoisted by one protester labeled Biden and Netanyahu war criminals and called them “Partner in Crime.” At the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh in south Lebanon, protesters set fire to a cardboard cutout of Biden’s head with a rope around his neck and blood painted over his mouth.

Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, told a state-run television network that the war is “pushing the region to the brink.”

Still, Mr. Biden emerged from the day trumpeting food, water and medicine poised to move into Gaza after lengthy deadlock. Israel cut off the flow of aid and fuel to the Gaza Strip after the attack that killed 1,400 civilians by Hamas, which controls the region.

The Biden adminstration plans to ask Congress for more than $2 billion in combined additional aid for Israel and Ukraine. Mr. Biden on Wednesday also announced $100 million in aid to Gaza and the West Bank.

“The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas,” Mr. Biden stressed. “Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.”

The tone of the discussions between Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu stood in stark contrast to their optimistic meeting just a month ago on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where Netanyahu marveled that a “historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia” seemed within reach.

The possibility of improved relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors has dimmed considerably with the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hamas war. Israel has been preparing for a potential ground invasion of Gaza. There are also fears that a new front could erupt along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah operates. The Iran-backed organization has been skirmishing with Israeli forces.

Allowing aid into the region had been seen by U.S. officials as a critical step toward the cooling of tensions in Arab nations after the blast at the hospital, which had been treating wounded Palestinians and sheltering many more who were seeking a refuge from the fighting.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible.

Officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a missile misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. The Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim. The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

Mr. Biden said data from his Defense Department showed that the explosion was not likely caused by an airstrike by the Israeli military. A White House National Security Council spokesperson followed up later with a post on social media that an analysis of “overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information” showed Israel was not behind the attack. But the U.S. continues to collect evidence.

“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Netanyahu.

The leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee in a joint statement said they felt confident the explosion was “the result of a failed rocket launch” by militants and not an Israeli airstrike.

Roughly 2,800 Palestinians have been reported killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. An additional 1,200 people are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said. Those numbers predate the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital on Tuesday.

Jordan declared three days of mourning, and Jordanian officials said the summit was canceled after speaking with all leaders. Foreign Minister Safadi said they had wanted the meeting to produce an end to the war, which seems unlikely now, and to give Palestinians the respect they deserve.

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Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza trade fire; 2 Palestinians killed in West Bank raid

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Israel and Palestinian militants unleashed salvos of fire for a fifth day on Saturday, with the Islamic Jihad militant group launching dozens more rockets and the Israeli military pounding targets inside the Gaza Strip.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in Gaza or Israel on Saturday. But in a reminder of the combustible situation in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military raided the Balata refugee camp near the northern city of Nablus, sparking a firefight that killed two Palestinians.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the two as 32-year-old Said Mesha and 19-year-old Adnan Araj.

At least three other Palestinians were wounded in the raid, the latest of near-daily Israeli arrest operations against suspected militants in the territory.

Meanwhile, hopes for an imminent cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were fading as the Israeli military on Saturday bombed an apartment belonging to Islamic Jihad commander Mohammed Abu Al Atta, among other targets including rocket launchers, it said.

Islamic Jihad militants fired a barrage of rockets toward southern Israel, where tens of thousands of Israelis were instructed to remain close to safe rooms and bomb shelters.

Hundreds of residents near the border were evacuated to hotels farther north. Missile shrapnel that slammed into Shokeda, an agricultural community in the south, severely wounded two shepherds in their 40s and moderately wounded another, Israeli medics said.

Islamic Jihad promised a further onslaught. “As assassinations and the bombing of apartments and safe houses continue, the Palestinian resistance will renew its rocket fire … to emphasize the continuation of the confrontation,” the group said.

Israeli officials told media that Egyptian-led efforts to broker a cease-fire were still underway but that Israel has ruled out the conditions presented by Islamic Jihad in the talks.

Israel has said only that quiet will be answered with quiet, while Islamic Jihad has been reportedly pressing Israel to agree to halt targeted assassinations, among other demands. If the rocket fire continues from Gaza, Israeli officials told local media, “the strikes (on Gaza) will continue and intensify.” The hostilities erupted on Tuesday when Israel targeted and killed three senior Islamic Jihad commanders who it said were responsible for firing rockets toward the country last week. At least 10 civilians, including women, young children and uninvolved neighbours were killed in those initial strikes, which drew regional condemnation.

Over the past few days, Israel has conducted more airstrikes, killing other senior Islamic Jihad commanders and destroying their command centers and rocket-launching sites. On Friday, Israel killed Iyad al-Hassani, an Islamic Jihad commander who had replaced a leader of the group’s military operations killed in a Tuesday airstrike.

The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported 33 Palestinians killed — six of them children — and over 147 wounded.

On Saturday, Palestinians ventured out to assess the damage wrought by Israeli warplanes and salvage whatever they could. One man carefully pulled documents out from under the rubble. Another carried away a mattress.

Four homes in densely populated residential neighbourhoods were reduced to dust in the pre-dawn attacks. The Israeli military alleged the targeted homes belonged to or were used by Islamic Jihad militants.

The residents denied the army’s claims and said they had no idea why their homes were targeted.

“We have no rocket launching pads at all. This is a residential area,” said Awni Obaid, beside the debris of what was his three-story house in the central town of Deir al-Balah.

The nearby house of his relative, Jehad Obaid, was also leveled. He had been standing some hundred metres away when his apartment was bombed.

“I felt like vomiting because of the dust,” he said. “This is extraordinary hatred. They claim they don’t strike at children, but what we see is craziness, destruction.” Islamic Jihad has retaliated by firing a thousand rockets toward southern and central Israel. On Friday, the group escalated its assaults and fired rockets toward Jerusalem, setting off air raid sirens in the Israeli settlements south of the contested capital.

Most of the rockets have fallen short or been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome aerial defense system.

But a rocket on Thursday penetrated missile defences and sliced through a house in the central city of Rehovot, killing an 80-year-old woman and wounding several others.

Hamas, the larger militant group that has controlled Gaza since seizing power in 2007, has praised Islamic Jihad’s strikes but remained on the sidelines, according to Israeli military officials, limiting the scope of the conflict.

As the de facto government held responsible for the abysmal conditions in the blockaded Gaza Strip, Hamas has recently tried to keep a lid on its conflict with Israel. Islamic Jihad, on the other hand, a more ideological and unruly militant group wedded to violence, has taken the lead in the past few rounds of fighting with Israel.

On Saturday, the deadly Israeli raid into the Balata refugee camp turned the focus of the conflict back to the long-simmering West Bank. Residents said that Israeli forces besieged a militant hideout, sharing footage of a large explosion and smoke billowing from the crowded camp. Ejected bullet casings littered the alleys. Blood soaked the streets.

The Israeli military said the targeted apartment harboured militants who had planned attacks against Israeli soldiers and manufactured improvised explosive devices. It said the fiery blast erupted after Israeli security forces detonated explosives inside the hideout.

The two Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on a group of gunmen who were shooting at them, the military said.

Israeli-Palestinian fighting has surged in the West Bank under Israel’s most right-wing government in history.

Since the start of the year, 111 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied territory, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to a tally by The Associated Press — the highest death toll in some two decades.

In that time, 20 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

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Prominent Palestinian hunger striker dies in Israeli custody

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A high-profile Palestinian prisoner died in Israeli custody on Tuesday after a hunger strike of nearly three months, Israel’s prison service announced. His death set off a rocket barrage from the Gaza Strip and raised fears of a further escalation.

Khader Adnan, a leader of the militant Islamic Jihad group, helped introduce the practice of protracted hunger strikes by individual prisoners as a form of protest against Israel’s mass detention of Palestinians without charge. On Tuesday, the 45-year-old became the first long-term hunger striker to die in Israeli custody.

Rockets fired toward Israel

In response to his death, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired 22 rockets toward populated areas in southern Israel, seriously wounding a 25-year-old man and moderately wounding two others at a construction site in the city of Sderot, Israel’s rescue service said, identifying all three as foreigners. Their nationalities were not immediately clear.

Air raid sirens sounded and Israeli municipal councils opened public bomb shelters. The reverberations and shrapnel punched a hole into the street and charred cars, footage showed. Four rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, authorities said.

“This is an initial response to this heinous crime that will trigger reactions from our people,” a coalition of Gaza-based Palestinian militant groups, led by the enclave’s Hamas rulers, said.

Palestinians called for a general strike in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and protesters rushed to Israeli military checkpoints in the occupied territory, slinging stones at Israeli soldiers. Israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at crowds gathered at the northern entrance to the West Bank city of Ramallah. Early on Tuesday, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired another volley of rockets that landed in empty fields in Israel. Islamic Jihad said that its “fight continues and will not stop.”

Palestinian prisoners are overseen by Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultra-nationalist politician who has tightened restrictions on the Palestinian inmates, including shortening their shower time and closing prison bakeries.

Mr. Ben-Gvir said on Tuesday that prison officials must exhibit “zero-tolerance toward hunger strikes and unrest in security prisons” and ordered prisoners be confined to their cells.

As Israeli-Palestinian violence has spiked, the number of administrative detainees has risen to more than 1,000 over the past year, the highest number in two decades.

For administrative detainees, hunger strikes are often the last recourse. Several have staged hunger strikes lasting several months, often becoming dangerously ill. Previous Israeli governments have at times conceded to some of their demands to avoid deaths in custody.

This time, warnings about Adnan’s deteriorating health were ignored, said the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights Israel.

The group and Adnan’s lawyer said they had asked Israeli authorities to move him from his cell to a hospital where his condition could best be monitored. The rights group said a doctor who visited Adnan several days ago warned that his life was in danger.

“We lay the responsibility for his death at the feet of the Israeli authorities,” said Dana Moss, from the rights group. “Hunger strikes are one of the few nonviolent tools left to Palestinians as they battle against Israel’s unfair legal system, set within a context of long term occupation and a regime of apartheid.”

Dawood Shahab, an Islamic Jihad spokesman, called Adnan’s death “a full-fledged crime, for which the Israeli occupation bears full and direct responsibility.”

In the West Bank, Mohammed Shtayyeh, the prime minister of the Palestinian self-rule government also held Israel responsible. He portrayed Adnan’s death as “premeditated assassination by refusing his request for his release, neglecting him medically, and keeping him in his cell despite the seriousness of his health condition.”

Israel’s prison service said Adnan had been charged with “involvement in terrorist activities.” It said he was in a prison medical facility, but had refused medical treatment “until the last moment” while legal proceedings moved forward. It said he was found unconscious in his cell early Tuesday and transferred to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Around 200 people gathered outside Adnan’s home in the occupied West Bank town of Arraba, holding signs bearing his image and called for revenge. Adnan’s widow, Randa Musa, told those gathered outside that “we do not want a single drop of bloodshed” in response to his death.

“We do not want rockets to be fired, or a following strike on Gaza,” she told the crowd.

Palestinian prisoners are seen as national heroes and any perceived threat to them while in Israeli detention can touch off tensions or violence. Israel sees Adnan and other Palestinian prisoners as security threats accused of involvement in deadly attacks or plots.

Over the past decade, Adnan became a household name in the Palestinian territories, as a powerful symbol of resistance to Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year. He staged several lengthy hunger strikes over the years, including a 66-day protest in 2012, and two other strikes in 2015 and 2018 that lasted 56 and 58 days respectively. Israel released Adnan after the 2015 strike.

He is credited with turning hunger strikes into a tool of protests by Palestinian detainees and a useful bargaining chip against Israeli authorities beginning over a decade ago.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, which represents former and current prisoners, Adnan was arrested 12 times and spent about eight years in Israeli prisons, most of that time in administrative detention.

The number of administrative detainees has grown in the past year as Israel has carried out almost nightly arrest raids in the West Bank in the wake of a string of deadly Palestinian attacks in Israel in early 2022.

Israel says the controversial tactic helps authorities thwart attacks and hold dangerous militants without divulging incriminating material for security reasons.

Palestinians and rights groups say the system is widely abused and denies due process, with the secret nature of the evidence making it impossible for administrative detainees or their lawyers to mount a defense.

Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank have been locked in a bout of fighting for the past year. About 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire and 49 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

On Tuesday, Israeli officials said an Israeli man was lightly wounded in a suspected Palestinian shooting attack in the West Bank.

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Israel stages strikes in Lebanon, blasts reported in Tyre

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The Israeli military said it launched strikes in Lebanon early Friday, and a Lebanese TV station reported explosions in the southern port city of Tyre. The military did not not provide immediate details.

The announcement of the strikes came hours after militants from Lebanon fired nearly three dozen rockets at Israel, marking a further escalation in the region following violence at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.

The Israeli military also struck targets in the Gaza Strip while Palestinian militants fired barrages of rockets into southern Israel early Friday, with the region edging closer toward war following two days of unrest at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site and a rare rocket attack from neighbouring Lebanon.

The fighting comes during a delicate time — when Jews are celebrating the Passover holiday and Muslims are marking the Ramadan holy month. Similar tensions spilled over into an 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers in 2021.

The current round of violence began Wednesday after Israeli police twice raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City. That led Thursday to rocket fire from Gaza and, in a significant escalation, an unusual barrage of nearly three dozen rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his Security Cabinet late Thursday, the military struck what it said were four sites in Gaza belonging to Hamas.

Following the nearly three-hour meeting, Netanyahu’s office put out a short statement saying a series of decisions had been made.

“Israel’s response, tonight and beyond, will extract a heavy price from our enemies,” Netanyahu said in the statement. It did not elaborate.

Smoke rises from a fire after rockets fired from Lebanon struck Bezet, northern Israel, on April 6, 2023. Militants in Lebanon fired a heavy barrage of rockets at Israel, forcing people across Israel’s northern frontier into bomb shelters.
| Photo Credit:
AP

But almost immediately, Palestinian militants in Gaza began firing rockets into southern Israel, setting off air raid sirens across the region. Loud explosions could be heard in Gaza from the Israeli strikes, as outgoing rockets whooshed into the skies toward Israel.

The airstrikes came after militants in Lebanon fired some 34 rockets into Israel, forcing people across Israel’s northern frontier into bomb shelters and wounding at least two people.

The Israeli military said the rocket fire on its northern and southern fronts was carried out by Palestinian militants in connection to this week’s violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where Israeli police stormed into the building with tear gas and stun grenades to confront Palestinians barricaded inside on two straight days. The violent scenes from the mosque ratcheted up tensions across the region.

There was no immediate Israeli action in Lebanon. The military said some 25 of the rockets were intercepted. But two people were wounded and property was damaged in several communities in northern Israel.

The rare attack from Lebanon raised fears of a wider conflagration as Israel’s bitter enemy, the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, holds sway over much of southern Lebanon.

In a briefing with reporters, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said the army drew a clear connection between the Lebanese rocket fire and the recent unrest in Jerusalem.

“It’s a Palestinian-oriented event,” he said, adding that either the Hamas or Islamic Jihad militant groups, which are based in Gaza but also operate in Lebanon, could be involved. But he said the army believed that Hezbollah and the Lebanese government were aware of what happened and also held responsibility.

The mosque — the third-holiest site in Islam — stands on a hilltop revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The competing claims to the site have repeatedly spilled over into violence over the years.

No faction in Lebanon claimed responsibility for the salvo of rockets. A Lebanese security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, said the country’s security forces believed the rockets were launched by a Lebanon-based Palestinian militant group, not by Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the firing of rockets from Lebanon, adding that Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers were investigating and trying to find the perpetrators. Mikati said his government “categorically rejects any military escalation” and the use of Lebanese territories to stage acts that threaten stability.

Hezbollah, which has condemned the Israeli police raids in Jerusalem, did not respond for a request for comment on the rocket fire. Both Israel and Hezbollah have avoided an all-out conflict since a 34-day war in 2006 ended in a draw.

Netanyahu could be constrained by his own domestic problems. For the past three months, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been demonstrating against his plans to overhaul the country’s judicial system, claiming it will lead the country toward authoritarianism.

Key military units, including fighter pilots, have threatened to stop reporting for duty if the overhaul is passed, drawing a warning from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that Israel’s national security could be harmed by the divisive plan. Netanyahu said he was firing Gallant, but then backtracked as he put the overhaul on hold for several weeks. Critics could also accuse him of trying to use the crisis to divert attention from his domestic woes.

Netanyahu said that the domestic divisions had no impact on national security and that the country would remain united in the face of external threats.

Tensions have simmered along the Lebanese border as Israel appears to have ratcheted up its shadow war against Iranian-linked targets in Syria, another close ally of Iran, Israel’s archenemy in the region.

Suspected Israeli airstrikes in Syria in recent weeks have killed two Iranian military advisers and temporarily put the country’s two largest airports out of service. Hecht, the military spokesman, said Thursday’s rocket fire was not believed to be connected to events in Syria.

In Washington, the principal deputy State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, said, “Israel has legitimate security concerns and has every right to defend themselves.”

But he also urged calm in Jerusalem, saying that “any unilateral action that jeopardises the status quo to us is unacceptable,” he said.

In Jerusalem, the situation remained tense at Al-Aqsa. For the previous two nights, Palestinians barricaded themselves in the mosque with stones and firecrackers.

Worshippers have been demanding the right to pray overnight inside the mosque — which authorities typically only permit during the last 10 days of the monthlong Ramadan holiday. They also have stayed in the mosque in protest over threats by religious Jews to carry out a ritual animal slaughter at the sacred site for Passover.

Israel did not try to prevent people from spending the night in the mosque early Friday — apparently because it was the weekend, when Jews do not visit the compound. But tensions could re-ignite Sunday when Jewish visits resume.

Israel bars ritual slaughter on the site, but calls by Jewish extremists to revive the practice, including offers of cash rewards to anyone who even attempts to bring an animal into the compound, have amplified fears among Muslims that Israel is plotting to take over the site

In this week’s violence, Israeli police fired stun grenades and rubber bullets to evict worshippers who had locked the doors of the building. Palestinians hurled stones and fireworks at officers. After a few hours of scuffles that left a trail of damage, police managed to drag everyone out of the compound.

Police fiercely beat Palestinians and arrested over 400 people. Israeli authorities control access to the area but the compound is administered by Islamic and Jordanian officials.

The violence at the site has resonated across the region, with condemnations pouring in from Muslim leaders.

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Israel hits Gaza with airstrikes after rockets intercepted

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Two rockets were fired from Gaza early Friday and Israel responded with airstrikes on the territory, further escalating tensions. Israeli forces on Thursday killed nine Palestinians — including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman — in the deadliest single incident in the occupied West Bank in two decades, Palestinian officials said.

The Israeli military said both rockets were intercepted by its Iron Dome missile defense system. It was the first such attack from the militant Hamas-ruled territory since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a far-right government that has pledged a tough line against Palestinian militancy.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the Israeli airstrikes.

The raid in the Jenin refugee camp and the rocket fire increases the risk of a major flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian fighting and casts a shadow on U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s expected trip to the region next week.

Raising the stakes, the Palestinian Authority said it would halt the ties that its security forces maintain with Israel in a shared effort to contain Islamic militants. Previous threats have been short-lived, in part because of the benefits the authority enjoys from the relationship and also due to U.S. and Israeli pressure to maintain it.

The PA already has limited control over scattered enclaves in the West Bank, and almost none over militant strongholds like the Jenin camp. But the announcement could pave the way for Israel to step up operations it says are needed to prevent attacks.

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, had earlier threatened revenge for the raid. Violent escalations in the West Bank have previously triggered retaliatory rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, which in turn has brought Israeli airstrikes down on the isolated and impoverished territory.

The Israeli strikes early Friday targeted training sites for Palestinian militant groups, the military said. Witnesses and local media reported that Israeli drones fired two missiles at a militant base in central Gaza Strip. The drone strikes usually serve as a warning for larger airstrikes by fighter jets.

On Thursday, Israeli forces went on heightened alert as Palestinians filled the streets across the West Bank, chanting in solidarity with Jenin. President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning, and in the refugee camp, residents dug a mass grave for the dead.

PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said Abbas had decided to cut security coordination in “light of the repeated aggression against our people, and the undermining of signed agreements,” referring to commitments from the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. He also said the Palestinians planned to file complaints with the U.N. Security Council, International Criminal Court and other international bodies.

The PA last cut security coordination with Israel in 2020, over Netanyahu’s drive to annex the occupied West Bank, which would make a future Palestinian state all but impossible. But six months later, the PA resumed cooperation, signaling the financial importance of the relationship and the Palestinians’ relief at the election of President Joe Biden.

Barbara Leaf, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, said the administration was deeply concerned about the situation and that civilian casualties reported in Jenin were “quite regrettable.” But she also said the Palestinian announcement to suspend security ties was a mistake.

“Obviously, we don’t think this is the right step to take at this moment,” she told reporters, saying the Palestinian vow to bring the matter to the U.N. and the International Criminal Court was problematic.

“We want to see them move back in the other direction,” she said, adding: “They need to engage with each other.”

There have been no serious peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in well over a decade.

Thursday’s gun battle that left nine dead and 20 wounded erupted when Israel’s military conducted a rare daytime operation in the Jenin camp that it said was meant to prevent an imminent attack on Israelis. The camp, where the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group has a major foothold, has been a focus of near-nightly Israeli arrest raids.

Hamas’ armed wing claimed four of the dead as members, while Islamic Jihad said three others belonged to the group. An earlier statement from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a militia loosely affiliated with Abbas’ secular Fatah party, claimed one of the dead was a fighter named Izz al-Din Salahat, but it was unclear if he was among those seven militants.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the 61-year-old woman killed as Magda Obaid, and the Israeli military said it was looking into reports of her death.

The Israeli military circulated aerial video it said was taken during the battle, showing what appeared to be Palestinians on rooftops hurling stones and firebombs on Israeli forces below. At least one Palestinian can be seen opening fire from a rooftop.

Later in the day, Israeli forces fatally shot a 22-year-old and wounded two others, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, as Palestinians confronted Israeli troops north of Jerusalem to protest Thursday’s raid. Israel’s paramilitary Border Police said they opened fire on Palestinians who launched fireworks at them from close range.

Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks.

Israel’s new national security minister, far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, who seeks to grant legal immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot Palestinians, posted a video of himself beaming triumphantly and congratulating security forces.

The raid left a trail of destruction in Jenin. A two-story building, apparently the operation’s target, was a charred wreck. The military said it entered the building to detonate explosives.

Palestinian Health Minister May Al-Kaila said paramedics struggled to reach the wounded during the fighting, while Akram Rajoub, the governor of Jenin, said the military prevented emergency workers from evacuating them.

Both accused the military of firing tear gas at the pediatric ward of a hospital, causing children to choke. Video at the hospital showed women carrying children into a corridor.

The military said forces closed roads to aid the operation, which may have complicated rescue efforts, and that tear gas had likely wafted into the hospital from nearby clashes.

The Israeli rights group B’Tselem said Thursday marked the single bloodiest West Bank incursion since 2002, at the height of an intense wave of violence known as the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which left scars still visible in Jenin.

“We ask that the international community help the Palestinians against this extremist right-wing government and protect our citizens,” said Rajoub, the Jenin governor.

U.N. Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was “deeply alarmed and saddened” by the violence. Condemnations came from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Turkey, which recently reestablished full diplomatic ties with Israel, as well as from neighboring Jordan.

Saudi Arabia criticized the raid, saying it rejected the “serious violations of international law by the Israeli occupation forces.” Qatar, Kuwait and Oman added condemnations.

Tensions over West Bank violence have spilled into Gaza before.

“The response of the resistance to what happened today in Jenin camp will not be delayed,” top Hamas official Saleh Arouri warned on Thursday, hours before the rockets were launched.

The Islamic Jihad branch in the coastal enclave has repeatedly fought against Israel, most recently in a fierce three-day clash last summer that killed dozens of Palestinians and disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis.

Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, making 2022 the deadliest in those territories since 2004, according to B’Tselem. So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed.

Israel says most of the dead were militants. But youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations also have been killed. So far this year, not including Thursday, one-third of the Palestinians killed by Israeli troops or civilians had ties to armed groups.

Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

Israel says its raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart attacks. The Palestinians say they further entrench Israel’s 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank, which Israel captured along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim those territories for their hoped-for state.

Israel has established dozens of settlements in the West Bank that now house 5,00,000 people. The Palestinians and much of the international community view settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace, even as talks to end the conflict have been moribund for over a decade.

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