GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (Dispatches) — The occupying regime of Israel and Palestinian militants unleashed salvos of fire for a fifth day on Saturday, with the Islamic Jihad resistance movement launching dozens more rockets and the Zionist military pounding the Gaza Strip.
So far 34 Palestinians have been martyred, at least 14 of them civilians, according to Palestinian health officials. Over 147 have been wounded.
In a reminder of the combustible situation in the occupied West Bank, the Zionist military raided the Balata refugee camp near the northern city of Nablus, sparking a firefight that martyred two Palestinians. In a separate incident near the northern city of Jenin, Israeli forces said they shot and killed a suspected Palestinian assailant who ran toward soldiers wielding a knife.
Meanwhile, hopes for an imminent ceasefire between the occupying regime of Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were fading as the Israeli military Saturday bombed an apartment belonging to Islamic Jihad commander Mohammed Abu Al Atta, among other targets including rocket launchers, it said.
Islamic Jihad combatants fired a barrage of rockets toward southern Occupied Palestine, where tens of thousands of Zionists were instructed to remain close to safe rooms and bomb shelters. Hundreds of residents near the Gaza fence were evacuated to hotels farther north.
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. Mortar shells fired by Palestinian combatants crashed into the Erez crossing between Gaza and Occupied Palestine.
Zionist officials told media that Egyptian-led efforts to broker a ceasefire were still underway but that Israel has ruled out the conditions presented by Islamic Jihad in the talks. The occupying regime 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, Zionist officials told local media, “the strikes (on Gaza) will continue and intensify.”
The hostilities erupted on Tuesday when the occupying regime of Israel targeted and martyred 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 neighbors were martyred in those initial strikes, which drew regional condemnation.
Over the past few days, the Zionist regime has conducted more airstrikes, martyring other senior Islamic Jihad commanders. On Friday, Israel martyred Iyad al-Hassani, an Islamic Jihad commander who had replaced a leader of the group’s military operations killed in a Tuesday airstrike.
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 neighborhoods were reduced to dust in the pre-dawn attacks. The Zionist military alleged the targeted homes belonged to or were used by Islamic Jihad combatants. The residents denied the military’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 meters 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 Occupied Palestine. On Friday, the group escalated its assaults and fired rockets toward Al-Quds, setting off air raid sirens in the settlements south of the contested capital.
A rocket on Thursday penetrated missile defenses and sliced through a house in the central city of Rehovot, killing a Zionist and wounding several others.
Hamas, the larger resistance movement that has administered Gaza since 2007, has praised Islamic Jihad’s strikes.
Islamic Jihad has taken the lead in the past few rounds of fighting with the occupying regime of 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 Zionist forces besieged a building, sharing footage of a large explosion and smoke billowing from the crowded camp. Ejected bullet casings littered the alleys. Blood soaked the streets. 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 in the territory.
Israeli-Palestinian fighting has surged in the West Bank under the occupying regime’s most extremist cabinet in history. Since the start of the year, 111 Palestinians have been martyred in the West Bank and east Al-Quds, 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.