Israeli fighter jets struck Hamas weapons manufacturing and storage sites in the central Gaza Strip Wednesday after a barrage of rockets and mortars from Gaza were fired at southern Israel as part of escalating violence.
(Bloomberg) — Israeli fighter jets struck Hamas weapons manufacturing and storage sites in the central Gaza Strip Wednesday after a barrage of rockets and mortars from Gaza were fired at southern Israel as part of escalating violence.
The rise in tensions coincide with the Jewish Passover holiday, overlapping with the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, and follows clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a flashpoint.
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Just before the rockets flew toward the Israeli city of Sderot — and were shot down by Israel — Hamas had denounced the Israeli police action at Al-Aqsa. It had earlier urged Palestinians to go to the holy site and barricade themselves in to prevent Jews who might seek to enter as part of Passover observance.
“Israel is acting to maintain the status quo and calm the situation,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. He blamed “Islamic extremists” for the Al-Aqsa violence.
The Israeli police said in a statement that its forces had gone to the compound after masked men locked themselves inside with crude weapons. When they tried to remove the men, stones and fireworks were thrown and they went in forcibly.
“Violence has no place in a holy site and during a holy season,” the US Office of Palestinian Affairs said in a statement, adding it was “alarmed by the shocking scenes in Al Aqsa Mosque and rockets launched from Gaza toward Israel,” and called for restraint.
Gaza is run by Hamas whereas the West Bank is presided over by the Palestinian Authority, which also condemned Israel’s police action. The new right-wing Israeli government includes ministers who favor greater Jewish presence atop the holy site.
For weeks, fears have grown that once Passover and Ramadan overlap, violence would flare.
“What is happening in Jerusalem is a major crime against worshipers,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said in a statement.
The fresh confrontation coincides with an escalation in Israel’s shadow war with its main regional enemy Iran, which supports militant groups committed to Israel’s destruction like Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories.
Iranian state TV reported on Wednesday that Tehran shot down “a suspicious” drone near a military facility in the central province of Isfahan but gave no further details. Iran blamed Israel for a similar attack in the same province in February.
On Monday Israel said it shot down an unidentified aircraft that crossed in to the country from Syria, where Israel has been for years conducting attacks against Iran and Hezbollah. Tehran boosted its military and security presence in Syria to defend its main Arab ally President Bashar Al Assad, who faced a popular uprising in 2011 that then turned into a brutal war with opposition forces backed by the West and regional states.
–With assistance from Fadwa Hodali.
(Adds Netanyahu statement in fourth paragraph, US statement in sixth paragraph.)
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