AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The occupying regime’s airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed a 58-year-old man and wounded five others on Wednesday despite a ceasefire, Palestinian health officials said.
Zionist fighter jets struck targets in Gaza on Tuesday. But after sunrise, the violence seemed to subside as both sides signaled they wanted to avoid a wider conflict.
The exchange erupted when a prominent Palestinian detainee died in the occupying regime’s custody after an 87-day hunger strike. The death of Khader Adnan, a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance group credited with popularizing hunger strikes as an effective form of activism, reverberated across the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, where he is revered as a national hero.
Protests erupted at the occupying regime’s military checkpoints and a general strike shuttered stores across the territories. Palestinians and rights groups have blamed the occupying regime for his death, accusing prison authorities of medical negligence.
Palestinians in Gaza fired 100 reprisal rockets into southern parts of the occupied territories late Tuesday.
The Israeli strikes sent shrapnel slicing through the house of 58-year-old Hashil Mubarak in Gaza City, his son Hatem said. As their roof collapsed, shards of metal struck Mubarak’s chest, killing him, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Mubarak was rushed to the hospital and could not be resuscitated.
“We were sleeping at home safe and sound when we heard a giant explosion from a missile,” Hatem recalled as mourners filled his neighborhood mosque and took turns bending down to kiss his father’s forehead.
“He was martyred,” he added.
The spike in violence comes at a time of heightened tensions in the occupied West Bank under the occupying regime’s most right-wing cabinet in history. On Wednesday, Zionist troops demolished the family houses of two Palestinians.
The occupying regime defends its decades-old policy of leveling family homes of alleged ‘attackers’ as a deterrent. The practice has long drawn criticism from human rights groups that call it collective punishment, forbidden by international law. Some also question its effectiveness in preventing future attacks, saying such demolitions only exacerbate tensions and fuel hatred in Palestinian communities.