Article Author:
Associated Press
Tia Goldenberg And Fare Akram
Tel Aviv, Israel (AP) — Israeli and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip exchange fires in the worst cross match on Saturday was doing. Border violence since the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas last year.
Israeli airstrikes killed 11 people, including a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad in Palestine, an Iran-backed radical group, in targeted attacks.
This week after another senior Islamic Jihad leader on the west bank of the Jordan River was arrested in a month-long Israeli operation to round up suspected Palestinians.
Radicals have launched dozens of rockets in Israeli cities and towns, disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of people.
Take a look at the latest round of violence.
In the shadow of Hamas
Islamic Jihad is the smaller of the two major Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip. Much more than the dominant Hamas group. However, it enjoys direct financial and military support from Iran and is the driving force behind rocket attacks and other conflicts with Israel.
Hamas, who took control of Gaza from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in 2007, is responsible for carrying out the day-to-day operations of poor areas, so his ability to act is Often restricted. The Islamic Jihad does not have such an obligation, it emerges as a more radical faction and sometimes even undermines Hamas' authority.
This group was founded in 1981 with the aim of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in the West Bank of Gaza and all of Israel today. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department, the European Union and other governments. Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad vows to destroy Israel.
Iranian Connections
Israel's archenemy, Iran, provides training, expertise and funding for the Islamic holy war, but most of the group's weapons are locally produced. In recent years, we have developed a weapon equivalent to Hamas, equipped with a long-range rocket capable of attacking the Tel Aviv metropolitan area in central Israel. An air raid warning sounded on Friday in the suburbs just south of Tel Aviv, but it does not appear that a rocket has hit the area.
Although based in Gaza, the Islamic Jihad has also taken leadership in Beirut and Damascus, maintaining close ties with the Iranian authorities.
When Israel began operations in Gaza on Friday, the group's top leader, Ziadal-Nakhalah, was in talks with Iranian officials in Tehran.
Target Commander
This is not the first time Israel has killed an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza. Commander Tizer al-Jabari, who was killed on Friday, replaced Bahaa Abu el Atta, who was killed by Israel in a 2019 strike. His death was the first attention-grabbing assassination of a person in the Islamic Jihad war by Israel since the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip.
50-year-old Al Jabari was a member of the Islamic Jihad's "Military Council", the group's decision-making body in Gaza. During the 2021 war, he was responsible for Islamic Jihad militant activities in the city of Gaza and the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Israel said it was preparing to launch an anti-tank missile attack on Israel.
His death occurred shortly after Israel arrested a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad War on the west coast earlier this week. Bassam Alsadi, 62, is a high-ranking Islamic Jihad official on the northwestern bank of the Jordan River. According to Israeli media, Alsadi was working to deepen and expand the group's reach on the West Bank.
Al-Saadi spent a total of 15 years in Israeli prisons several stints to be an active member of the Islamic Jihad War. Israel killed two sons who were also Islamic Jihad militants in separate incidents in 2002, and destroyed his home during a fierce battle in the West Bank city of Genin that same year.
“Attacking a commander immediately affects all organizations,” said Zvika Haimovich, a former director of the Israeli Air Defense Forces.
"It quickly causes great confusion in Jihad."
Delicate balance
Since taking power in 2007 Hamas has fought four wars with Israel and has often been supported by the Islamic Jihad. With the exception of a rekindling earlier this year, the border has been almost quiet since last year's 11-day war, and Hamas appears to remain a bystander of this current blaze, preventing it from spilling over into a full-scale war. Maybe.
Islamic Jihad militants Hamas by launching rockets, often without claiming responsibility, to raise their profile among Palestinians while Hamas maintains a ceasefire. I challenged. Israel blames Hamas for all rocket launches from Gaza.
Hamas must walk the tightrope while curbing the Islamic Jihad fire against Israel and avoiding the wrath of the Palestinians. Like the rekindling of the past, Hamas has the final say on how long this round of combat will last and how violent it will be.
Poll Leader
The current battle is in the midst of a protracted political crisis in which Israel sends voters to its fifth vote in less than four years. happen. autumn.
Caretaker leader Yair Lapid took over earlier this summer after the ideologically diverse governments he helped form collapsed and triggered new elections.
Rapid, a former television moderator and writer of centrist politicians, lacks a security background that many Israelis consider essential to their leadership. His political fortune may depend on the current battle, and if he can portray himself as a capable leader, he will get a boost or when the Israelis are enjoying the last week of summer. You can be hit by a long operation.
Rapid hopes to defeat former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a security force hawk on trial for corruption, in his next vote.
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Akram was reported by the city of Gaza in the Gaza Strip. Contributed by Associated Press writer Emily Rose in Jerusalem.