GAZA CITY (Dispatches) -- Six Palestinians, including a 10-year-old girl, were martyred in Gaza on the second day of bombing by the occupying regime of Israel, with Palestinian groups firing dozens of rockets, targeting cities as far as Tel Aviv.
Starting from Wednesday noon local time, Israeli fighter jets launched airstrikes in several locations across Gaza throughout the day, including in Rafah, Khan Younis, Beit Lahia and other areas.
The Palestinian health ministry said at least five Palestinians have been martyred, bringing the death toll since the start of the Israeli offensive on Tuesday to 21, including five children. At least 64 others have been wounded.
The Palestinian Joint Command, an umbrella body of armed factions in Gaza, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, launched rockets towards Occupied Palestine in response, targeting Tel Aviv, Sderot, Ashkelon and other areas in central and southern occupied territories.
The Wednesday fighting came a day after the occupying regime of Israel launched a new offensive in Gaza dubbed “Operation Shield and Arrow”.
On its first day, Israeli bombing martyred 15 Palestinians, including four children and five women.
The Zionist military said in different statements that it struck military targets belonging to the Islamic Jihad as part of the offensive.
The Palestinian Joint Command on Wednesday said it launched the counter “Operation Revenge for the Free”.
It said in a statement that it fired rockets in response to Israel targeting civilian homes and assassinating three Islamic Jihad commanders. It added that the Palestinian resistance was ready for all options if the Zionist regime continues its aggression.
In one of the deadly Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday, the military claimed it targeted Islamic Jihad operatives at rocket launch sites.
However, eyewitnesses denied the Israeli claim, saying the target was a group of farmers.
“A man went with his relatives to pick up the cucumber crop from their farmland, 300 meters away from their house in the al-Fukhari area east of Khan Younis, when he was targeted and martyred,” Hasan Abu Taima, a resident of the area, told Middle East Eye.
A similar airstrike in a nearby area martyred two people on Tuesday with Israel also claiming they were Islamic Jihad fighters. The group denied they were members.
In an airstrike that hit a house in central Gaza on Wednesday, a 10-year-old was martyred. She became the fifth child to die in the Israeli aggression.
The UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, on Tuesday condemned the “unacceptable” killing of civilians.
“I condemn the deaths of civilians in the Israeli airstrikes. This is unacceptable,” Wennesland said.
But in a verbal sleight of hand, Wennesland did not condemn the Israeli attack itself. Indeed, he appeared to give the bombing of civilian homes at a time when families were certain to be sleeping inside a veneer of legitimacy by terming it “a military operation targeting members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement.”
The European Union did not offer even the slightest criticism of the Israeli attack, instead expressing only that it was “gravely concerned by the escalation in Gaza following today’s Israeli air raids”.
Brussels added that it “regrets the loss of civilian lives, including children.”
Meanwhile, as the bloodshed in Gaza continued to unfold, European diplomats went ahead with a “Europe Day” party in Tel Aviv on the site of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian village of Jarisha.
The U.S. embassy in Al-Quds said that it was “aware of reports that civilians were tragically killed in the Israeli strikes” on Gaza and called “for all parties to de-escalate the situation to protect noncombatants and prevent any further loss of civilian life.”
The embassy added that “the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security remains ironclad.”
Hours before the Israeli bombing campaign was launched, Eli Cohen, the Zionist regime’s foreign minister, spoke with his American counterpart Antony Blinken.
International law experts may well consider that the three Islamic Jihad leaders assassinated by Israel were also civilians protected by international humanitarian law and that their deaths may amount to extrajudicial executions.
In any case, both the principles of distinction and proportionality make the Zionist regime’s surprise and unprovoked targeting of leaders sleeping at home with their families an open-and-shut case of war crimes.
Israeli media reports suggested

that the surprise attack was planned far in advance. Haaretz reported that a senior Israeli minister told the paper that “prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed a few months ago that he decided to return to the policy of targeted assassinations.”
While Israel undoubtedly always makes such contingency plans, the specific timing of Tuesday’s attack on the three Islamic Jihad figures and their families is odd even in light of Tel Aviv’s frequently irrational behavior.
As Haaretz’s Anshel Pfeffer notes, “no one in Israel is pretending they were ‘ticking bombs’ about to launch another imminent attack.”
In similar circumstances, Pfeffer observes, Netanyahu has generally avoided choosing this kind of extrajudicial execution even when presented with the option by his military and intelligence commanders.
Why Israel would try to provoke such an escalation so soon after may have to do with its domestic politics. Netanyahu’s decision-making in this case, Pfeffer asserts, “has to be seen in light of his political circumstances.”
Ultra-far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had suspended his Jewish Power party’s participation in the cabinet to protest what he considered its insufficiently hardline policies against Palestinians.
Following the bloodbath in Gaza early Tuesday, Ben-Gvir happily returned to the fold – avoiding another day of crisis in Netanyahu’s coalition.
The Jewish Power party announced that it would resume its participation “following the acceptance of our position and the transition from containment to attack in the targeted killings of senior Islamic Jihad figures.”
Ben-Gvir himself called the slaughter of sleeping families a “nice start,” adding, “it’s time we change our policy regarding Gaza.”
The fresh Israeli aggression comes a week after a brief exchange of fire between the Zionist regime and Palestinian groups in Gaza left one Palestinian martyred and two Zionists wounded.
It is largest attack mounted by the occupying regime of Israel against Gaza since August last year, when the Zionist military assassinated senior PIJ commander Tayseer al-Jabari, triggering a three-day exchange of fire.
At least 49 Palestinians were martyred in the 2022 Israeli bombardment, including 17 children, and 360 others were wounded.
More than two million Palestinians are packed into Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas. Under blockade by Israel since 2006, the besieged coastal enclave has been described as “the world’s largest open-air prison”.
The Zionist military has martyred at least 129 Palestinian this year, 109 of whom were shot dead in the West Bank.
Palestinians have killed at least 16 Zionists in the same period.