Post by pieter on May 9, 2023 7:57:07 GMT -7
Israel Launches IDF Operation 'Shield And Arrow' In Gaza
The Israeli military struck Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leaders and weapon manufacturing facilities in the Gaza Strip. Israel's army declared the start of operation "Shield and Arrow" in response to months of attacks from the PIJ.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior advisers to US President Joe Biden that an operation in Gaza might be on the agenda in their meeting the day before launching Operation Shield and Arrow on Tuesday.
In his meeting with White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk and Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security Amos Hochstein on Monday, Netanyahu made vague reference to a planned response to recent rockets from Gaza, but did not tell them when it would happen, a diplomatic source said, confirming a report by KAN News.
McGurk and Hocstein responded supportively, the source said.
Netanyahu also spoke with US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides on Monday, ahead of the operation, but did not tell him about it.
The IDF said the three senior commanders of the Iranian-backed group, who were successfully eliminated in the attack, were responsible for recent rocket fire toward Israel, when more than 100 projectiles were fired toward residents of the south. Palestinian claim another 12 dead.
Gaza
Gaza City – Adeeb al-Rabai had just fallen asleep in his home in Gaza City when he was awakened by the sounds of bombing in the very early hours of Tuesday.
“I thought I was dreaming until I realised that the bombing was on my building,” the 60-year-old lawyer said.
Israel had launched air raids on several areas across the Gaza Strip, killing at least 13 people, including six women and four children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Among the dead were three members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement.
“It’s a civilian residential building,” al-Rabai said, standing in front of the bombed six-storey building. “Israeli missiles hit the fourth, fifth and sixth floors which were partially destroyed. Civilians live in those apartments, women and children.”
With no warning, al-Rabai said, “[the] Israeli occupation meant to destroy and kill those in the building.”
An Israeli military spokesperson told reporters the attacks had been to target PIJ members, adding, “We’re aware of some collateral and we’ll learn more as the day goes ahead.”
Farewells to those gone too soon
After the dhuhr (noon) prayers, thousands of mourners in a funeral procession through the heart of Gaza City, starting at the Omari Mosque, where they chanted as they lifted the bodies of the victims, promising revenge for the “major crime” committed.
Dania Adass’s finance mourns and prays by her body during the funeral [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
Shaaban Adass was mourning his cousins, sisters Dania, 21, and Iman Alaa Adass, 17, who were killed when an Israeli attack hit near their home in the Tofah neighbourhood east of Gaza City.
“What happened is a heinous crime by the Israeli occupation, which claimed the lives of innocent people who were supposed to be safe in their homes,” he told Al Jazeera.
The attacks on Tofah were apparently targeting 44-year-old Khalil al-Bahtini, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) member who was killed along with his wife and his five-year-old daughter. Dania and Iman were “collateral damage”.
“Dania was getting ready for her wedding in a few days, and Iman was sad because her sister was about to leave the family home,” Adass said, pointing out Dania’s fiancé who wept silently near her body. He could not speak.
“Now, the sisters are together forever, what an enormous heartbreak and shock.”
Omar Saleh Abu Omar was there to mourn his friend Tariq Ezz el-Din, 48, a former prisoner in Israeli prisons and one of the PIJ members killed in the Israeli attack – along with his two children, Ali and Mayar.
“Tariq was a good person, he loved his country and his family. He was such a loving father,” Abu Omar said.
The bodies of Dania and Iman Adass are brought out of the ambulance for the funeral [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
Ezz el-Din lived in al-Rabai’s building, where a total of six people were killed.
“Mr Jamal Khaswan, his wife and his 22-year-old son and Mr Tariq Ezz El-Din and his two children who are under 10,” al-Rabai counted.
Khaswan was a dentist who was known for offering free treatments to people who could not afford to pay for his help.
‘My friends were killed, we played together’
In front of the bombed building, children aged seven to 10 gathered. They told reporters how frightened they and their families felt last night.
Eight-year-old Kinan Arada told Al Jazeera, “I woke up when the building was bombed. Our apartment windows shattered; we were screaming and ran downstairs. I was terrified, the whole building was burning.”
“I was so scared when I heard that my two friends and neighbours, Mayar and Ali, were killed in the attack,” Arada said. “We were in the same school and played together every day.”
After the bombing, the Joint Operation Room of Palestinian Resistance Factions said in a statement: “[T]he Room mourns the martyrs and holds the enemy fully responsible for the repercussions of this cowardly crime.
“The occupation and its leaders who initiated this aggression must prepare to pay the price.”
Gaza op gets broad political support as some trade barbs over Ben Gvir
Lapid, Gantz offer backing for ‘Operation Shield and Arrow’ action against terrorists; foreign minister cuts short visit in India; Likud MK: No connection to Ben Gvir’s boycott
Yesh Atid head MK Yair Lapid and National Unity head MK Benny Gantz seen at the assembly hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem, on February 20, 2023 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Opposition and coalition lawmakers expressed their backing of the military operation launched Tuesday in the Gaza Strip with the targeted killings of three senior members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid tweeted that he gives “my support to the security forces for this operation against Islamic Jihad in Gaza.” He added that: “This morning, terror groups in Gaza know that the intelligence community and the security forces are following their every move and every step and the score will be settled.”
“An Israeli response at the time and place of our choosing is the way to deal with terror from Gaza. We will support any operation to defend the residents of the south,” Lapid said.
At least 13 people were killed in the bombing runs, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-controlled territory. Islamic Jihad said the wives of the three commanders and a number of their children were among the dead. At least 20 people were reported injured in the strikes.
National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, who had been boycotting government activity in recent days over the government’s “feeble” response to rocket fire from Gaza last week, called the launch of Operation Shield and Arrow “a good start.”
“I congratulate the prime minister on the proactive operation in Gaza,” Ben Gvir said. “It’s a good start. The time has come to change our policy in Gaza.” He did not say if he was planning to end his boycott.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir gives a press statement during a meeting of his Otzma Yehudit party in the southern city of Sderot, May 3, 2023. (Flash90)
In announcing details of the targeted strikes, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant wrote: “Any terrorist element that harms the citizens of Israel will regret it,” adding: “We will pursue and reach our enemies.”
The bombings came days after Gazan terrorists led by Islamic Jihad fired 104 rockets at Israel in response to the death of an alleged senior member of the group who had been on hunger strike in Israeli prison. Several rockets struck Sderot during the May 2 clash, injuring three workers and damaging homes and cars.
Israel conducted some limited retaliatory strikes at the time, but the government came under criticism from the right for not reacting more strongly.
Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly decided on Operation Shield and Arrow during discussions with security brass on Friday, without involving other members of the cabinet. According to an unsourced report on the Ynet news site, they specifically kept Ben Gvir in the dark amid fears that he would leak details of the upcoming strikes and negate the element of surprise.
Still, some right-wing coalition lawmakers hinted that they were involved in the decision-making, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeting his thanks to Israeli citizens “for trusting us even when everything cannot be said in real time.” Likud MK Nissim Vaturi wrote: “Just as I promised, we operate at the time and place that suits us.”
The damage to a building following Israeli airstrikes on an apartment of an Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza City, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who departed for India on Monday evening, said Tuesday morning that he would be cutting his trip short and returning to Israel Tuesday evening following a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
National Unity party chief Benny Gantz, the former defense minister, said Tuesday: “Our enemies erred in their assessment of the situation.” Gantz welcomed the start of the operation, saying he hopes the current government “will know how to conduct itself with the necessary combination of responsibility and determination in the future as well.”
MK Ofer Cassif of Hadash-Ta’al, meanwhile, decried the “massacre in Gaza,” saying that it was aimed solely at “keeping the party of racist filth in the government” — a reference to Ben Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit party.
Mourners comfort each other in the morgue of Al-Shifa Hospital after Israeli airstrikes killed a dozen Palestinians in Gaza City, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The Israeli military says it has killed three senior commanders of the Islamic Jihad group in targeted airstrikes. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky rejected any attempt to connect the launch of the operation with Ben Gvir’s boycott.
“It’s crazy and absurd to think anyone would time a military operation due to political pressure,” Milwidsky said in an interview on Radio 103 FM Tuesday morning. “It would be a terrible thing if that were the case, and it is not the case.”
Yesh Atid MK Ram Ben-Barak, a former deputy director of Mossad, mocked Ben Gvir, tweeting: “Itamar, breathe. The decision was made in a deliberation you were not a part of.” Ben-Barak added that his party “backs the government in its fight against terror. Right now there is no left and right.”
Labor MK Efrat Rayten said she was relieved no IDF soldiers had been harmed so far in the operation, and hoped for “quiet days” for Israelis living near Gaza. She added that the Foreign Ministry will have a “complicated job” in explaining the deaths of women and children in the strikes. “Ben Gvir was excluded from the decision to launch the operation,” Rayten wrote. “The message: ‘You are harmful and unwanted.'”
Otzma Yehudit’s Cohen, who had pressed publicly for a harsh IDF reprisal to rocket fire last week, said he would close his “Sderot bureau,” which he opened to draw attention to the rocket-battered city.
“You have our full [backing] to act against and battle terror until quiet is returned,” he said.
Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen reacts during a discussion in the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on February 22, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
After the explosions ripped through Gaza early Tuesday morning, Israeli residents of areas within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of the Strip were instructed to enter or stay near bomb shelters amid fears of reprisal attacks.
Previous strikes on Islamic Jihad leaders have sparked barrages of rockets on Israeli civilians and intense battles with Israeli troops, some lasting several days.
The IDF began hitting targets in the Strip just after 2 a.m. in a coordinated surprise attack on the group’s senior leaders.
Military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the IDF had achieved its goals with the opening strikes.
“At this stage, we achieved what we set for ourselves, we hit those needed, and if necessary we will deepen the attacks more. We are prepared for any scenario,” Hagari told reporters.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
Sources: Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, I24, Israel Hayom and Al Jazeeera
The Israeli military struck Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leaders and weapon manufacturing facilities in the Gaza Strip. Israel's army declared the start of operation "Shield and Arrow" in response to months of attacks from the PIJ.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior advisers to US President Joe Biden that an operation in Gaza might be on the agenda in their meeting the day before launching Operation Shield and Arrow on Tuesday.
In his meeting with White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk and Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security Amos Hochstein on Monday, Netanyahu made vague reference to a planned response to recent rockets from Gaza, but did not tell them when it would happen, a diplomatic source said, confirming a report by KAN News.
McGurk and Hocstein responded supportively, the source said.
Netanyahu also spoke with US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides on Monday, ahead of the operation, but did not tell him about it.
The IDF said the three senior commanders of the Iranian-backed group, who were successfully eliminated in the attack, were responsible for recent rocket fire toward Israel, when more than 100 projectiles were fired toward residents of the south. Palestinian claim another 12 dead.
Gaza
Gaza City – Adeeb al-Rabai had just fallen asleep in his home in Gaza City when he was awakened by the sounds of bombing in the very early hours of Tuesday.
“I thought I was dreaming until I realised that the bombing was on my building,” the 60-year-old lawyer said.
Israel had launched air raids on several areas across the Gaza Strip, killing at least 13 people, including six women and four children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Among the dead were three members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement.
“It’s a civilian residential building,” al-Rabai said, standing in front of the bombed six-storey building. “Israeli missiles hit the fourth, fifth and sixth floors which were partially destroyed. Civilians live in those apartments, women and children.”
With no warning, al-Rabai said, “[the] Israeli occupation meant to destroy and kill those in the building.”
An Israeli military spokesperson told reporters the attacks had been to target PIJ members, adding, “We’re aware of some collateral and we’ll learn more as the day goes ahead.”
Farewells to those gone too soon
After the dhuhr (noon) prayers, thousands of mourners in a funeral procession through the heart of Gaza City, starting at the Omari Mosque, where they chanted as they lifted the bodies of the victims, promising revenge for the “major crime” committed.
Dania Adass’s finance mourns and prays by her body during the funeral [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
Shaaban Adass was mourning his cousins, sisters Dania, 21, and Iman Alaa Adass, 17, who were killed when an Israeli attack hit near their home in the Tofah neighbourhood east of Gaza City.
“What happened is a heinous crime by the Israeli occupation, which claimed the lives of innocent people who were supposed to be safe in their homes,” he told Al Jazeera.
The attacks on Tofah were apparently targeting 44-year-old Khalil al-Bahtini, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) member who was killed along with his wife and his five-year-old daughter. Dania and Iman were “collateral damage”.
“Dania was getting ready for her wedding in a few days, and Iman was sad because her sister was about to leave the family home,” Adass said, pointing out Dania’s fiancé who wept silently near her body. He could not speak.
“Now, the sisters are together forever, what an enormous heartbreak and shock.”
Omar Saleh Abu Omar was there to mourn his friend Tariq Ezz el-Din, 48, a former prisoner in Israeli prisons and one of the PIJ members killed in the Israeli attack – along with his two children, Ali and Mayar.
“Tariq was a good person, he loved his country and his family. He was such a loving father,” Abu Omar said.
The bodies of Dania and Iman Adass are brought out of the ambulance for the funeral [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]
Ezz el-Din lived in al-Rabai’s building, where a total of six people were killed.
“Mr Jamal Khaswan, his wife and his 22-year-old son and Mr Tariq Ezz El-Din and his two children who are under 10,” al-Rabai counted.
Khaswan was a dentist who was known for offering free treatments to people who could not afford to pay for his help.
‘My friends were killed, we played together’
In front of the bombed building, children aged seven to 10 gathered. They told reporters how frightened they and their families felt last night.
Eight-year-old Kinan Arada told Al Jazeera, “I woke up when the building was bombed. Our apartment windows shattered; we were screaming and ran downstairs. I was terrified, the whole building was burning.”
“I was so scared when I heard that my two friends and neighbours, Mayar and Ali, were killed in the attack,” Arada said. “We were in the same school and played together every day.”
After the bombing, the Joint Operation Room of Palestinian Resistance Factions said in a statement: “[T]he Room mourns the martyrs and holds the enemy fully responsible for the repercussions of this cowardly crime.
“The occupation and its leaders who initiated this aggression must prepare to pay the price.”
Gaza op gets broad political support as some trade barbs over Ben Gvir
Lapid, Gantz offer backing for ‘Operation Shield and Arrow’ action against terrorists; foreign minister cuts short visit in India; Likud MK: No connection to Ben Gvir’s boycott
Yesh Atid head MK Yair Lapid and National Unity head MK Benny Gantz seen at the assembly hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem, on February 20, 2023 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Opposition and coalition lawmakers expressed their backing of the military operation launched Tuesday in the Gaza Strip with the targeted killings of three senior members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid tweeted that he gives “my support to the security forces for this operation against Islamic Jihad in Gaza.” He added that: “This morning, terror groups in Gaza know that the intelligence community and the security forces are following their every move and every step and the score will be settled.”
“An Israeli response at the time and place of our choosing is the way to deal with terror from Gaza. We will support any operation to defend the residents of the south,” Lapid said.
At least 13 people were killed in the bombing runs, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-controlled territory. Islamic Jihad said the wives of the three commanders and a number of their children were among the dead. At least 20 people were reported injured in the strikes.
National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, who had been boycotting government activity in recent days over the government’s “feeble” response to rocket fire from Gaza last week, called the launch of Operation Shield and Arrow “a good start.”
“I congratulate the prime minister on the proactive operation in Gaza,” Ben Gvir said. “It’s a good start. The time has come to change our policy in Gaza.” He did not say if he was planning to end his boycott.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir gives a press statement during a meeting of his Otzma Yehudit party in the southern city of Sderot, May 3, 2023. (Flash90)
In announcing details of the targeted strikes, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant wrote: “Any terrorist element that harms the citizens of Israel will regret it,” adding: “We will pursue and reach our enemies.”
The bombings came days after Gazan terrorists led by Islamic Jihad fired 104 rockets at Israel in response to the death of an alleged senior member of the group who had been on hunger strike in Israeli prison. Several rockets struck Sderot during the May 2 clash, injuring three workers and damaging homes and cars.
Israel conducted some limited retaliatory strikes at the time, but the government came under criticism from the right for not reacting more strongly.
Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly decided on Operation Shield and Arrow during discussions with security brass on Friday, without involving other members of the cabinet. According to an unsourced report on the Ynet news site, they specifically kept Ben Gvir in the dark amid fears that he would leak details of the upcoming strikes and negate the element of surprise.
Still, some right-wing coalition lawmakers hinted that they were involved in the decision-making, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeting his thanks to Israeli citizens “for trusting us even when everything cannot be said in real time.” Likud MK Nissim Vaturi wrote: “Just as I promised, we operate at the time and place that suits us.”
The damage to a building following Israeli airstrikes on an apartment of an Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza City, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who departed for India on Monday evening, said Tuesday morning that he would be cutting his trip short and returning to Israel Tuesday evening following a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
National Unity party chief Benny Gantz, the former defense minister, said Tuesday: “Our enemies erred in their assessment of the situation.” Gantz welcomed the start of the operation, saying he hopes the current government “will know how to conduct itself with the necessary combination of responsibility and determination in the future as well.”
MK Ofer Cassif of Hadash-Ta’al, meanwhile, decried the “massacre in Gaza,” saying that it was aimed solely at “keeping the party of racist filth in the government” — a reference to Ben Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit party.
Mourners comfort each other in the morgue of Al-Shifa Hospital after Israeli airstrikes killed a dozen Palestinians in Gaza City, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. The Israeli military says it has killed three senior commanders of the Islamic Jihad group in targeted airstrikes. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)
Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky rejected any attempt to connect the launch of the operation with Ben Gvir’s boycott.
“It’s crazy and absurd to think anyone would time a military operation due to political pressure,” Milwidsky said in an interview on Radio 103 FM Tuesday morning. “It would be a terrible thing if that were the case, and it is not the case.”
Yesh Atid MK Ram Ben-Barak, a former deputy director of Mossad, mocked Ben Gvir, tweeting: “Itamar, breathe. The decision was made in a deliberation you were not a part of.” Ben-Barak added that his party “backs the government in its fight against terror. Right now there is no left and right.”
Labor MK Efrat Rayten said she was relieved no IDF soldiers had been harmed so far in the operation, and hoped for “quiet days” for Israelis living near Gaza. She added that the Foreign Ministry will have a “complicated job” in explaining the deaths of women and children in the strikes. “Ben Gvir was excluded from the decision to launch the operation,” Rayten wrote. “The message: ‘You are harmful and unwanted.'”
Otzma Yehudit’s Cohen, who had pressed publicly for a harsh IDF reprisal to rocket fire last week, said he would close his “Sderot bureau,” which he opened to draw attention to the rocket-battered city.
“You have our full [backing] to act against and battle terror until quiet is returned,” he said.
Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen reacts during a discussion in the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on February 22, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
After the explosions ripped through Gaza early Tuesday morning, Israeli residents of areas within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of the Strip were instructed to enter or stay near bomb shelters amid fears of reprisal attacks.
Previous strikes on Islamic Jihad leaders have sparked barrages of rockets on Israeli civilians and intense battles with Israeli troops, some lasting several days.
The IDF began hitting targets in the Strip just after 2 a.m. in a coordinated surprise attack on the group’s senior leaders.
Military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the IDF had achieved its goals with the opening strikes.
“At this stage, we achieved what we set for ourselves, we hit those needed, and if necessary we will deepen the attacks more. We are prepared for any scenario,” Hagari told reporters.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
Sources: Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, I24, Israel Hayom and Al Jazeeera
