Four children, three senior Islamic Jihad commanders were among 12 people killed in Gaza airstrikes launched by the Israeli military on Tuesday in what it claimed was an attempt to target the Islamic Jihad group.
The airstrikes were the latest incident in more than a year of surging violence that has seen repeated Israeli military raids and escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank, amid a spate of Palestinian street attacks on Israelis.
Israel’s military said it targeted three senior commanders of Islamic Jihad, the second most powerful armed group in the blockaded coastal enclave, which is controlled by Hamas.
“Any terrorist who harms Israeli citizens will be made to regret it,” said Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Israel’s military, working with the Shin Bet intelligence service, targeted the leadership of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza in a “precise” operation, he added.
The military said 40 jets took part in the strikes, which it said were timed to suit operational conditions.
“It was a convergence of intelligence, timing and weather,” a military spokesperson said.
A Gaza health official said at least 12 people had been killed and 20 wounded in the strikes that hit residential areas in the densely populated strip in which 2.3 million Palestinians live on a patch of 365 square kilometres (140 square miles).—Reuters
