Israel bombed Lebanon and Gaza in parallel on Friday, after a missile attack on its territory, unprecedented since 2006, for which the Hamas movement, which controls the Strip, was held responsible. Early in the morning, Palestinian militias fired 44 rocket-propelled grenades from Gaza towards Israeli territory. As of Friday, there were no fatalities, but three people lost their lives during the day in two attacks, in the northern occupied West Bank and in Tel Aviv. After the latest accident, in which an Italian tourist lost his life, he was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the mobilization of all Border Police soldiers and additional forces from the army.
The situation was already tense in the region for months, but in recent hours it led to an escalation of the spiral of violence as a result of the Israeli police raiding a place that represents this symbol for the Islamic world and important for the Palestinian identity on two consecutive nights. .. Like Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
At noon, the armed forces announced that two women in their 20s had been killed and that a 48-year-old woman was in critical condition in what was initially interpreted as a traffic accident between a Palestinian car and an Israeli car near the Jewish settlement of Hamra. , in the northern West Bank, one of the hottest areas of conflict. After discovering “many gunshots in the Israeli car,” the displaced soldiers arrived at the place to the conclusion that the car lost control as a result of an attack, and closed the roads in the area to search for the perpetrator. Two sisters and their mother from Efrat neighborhood, south of Bethlehem. Late in the day, a 30-year-old Italian was killed and five other tourists (mostly British) injured to varying degrees in a mixed shooting and ramming incident in Tel Aviv. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani confirmed on Twitter that the fatal victim was an Italian national, Alessandro Parini. In the video, several policemen can be seen killing the attacker – identified as a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship who was working in the city – near an overturned car near the waterfront.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with the heads of the security forces to analyze the situation and ordered an increased deployment of security forces on all roads and towns. Artillery and infantry have already been reinforced on the borders with Lebanon and Gaza. A police presence is visible around Jerusalem’s Old City, which is home to holy sites for the three main monotheistic religions, on a day coinciding with Muslim Ramadan, the Jewish Passover week (Passaj) and Christian Good Friday. The road to the Western Wall has been diverted from one of the main entrances to the old citadel.
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On Friday (the third of Ramadan), at dawn today, with the continued bombing and tension of the previous days, some sporadic incidents occurred around the Old City. Later, 15 Palestinians were arrested for waving Palestinian and Hamas flags, and for shouting the news of the attack in the West Bank. By noon Israel withdrew the order to stay near the shelters it had given to the residents of Gaza, the hardest hit by the rockets, given their range. This, together with the lack of deaths from shelling and shelling, seemed to indicate that the situation had stabilized.
Netanyahu: “a heavy price”
On Thursday, in the wake of a barrage of rockets from Lebanon, Netanyahu formed his security cabinet. And at dawn today, at the conclusion of the meeting, he issued a brief statement: “Israel’s response tonight and in the future will cost a heavy price.” Two hours later, the bombing began in Lebanon.
Residents of the Tyre region, in southern Lebanon, heard explosions and the noise of Israeli planes that flew over the area around 4 a.m. on Friday (three, in mainland Spain). A resident of the Rashidieh Palestinian refugee camp near Tire told AFP that at least two shells landed near the camp. Hezbollah TV Al-Manar talks about three areas bombed. Hamas said, “We strongly condemn the blatant Zionist aggression against Lebanon,” which asked the United Nations and the Arab League to meet urgently to condemn it.
Israel has not received dozens of shells from Lebanon since 2006, when it fought a month-long war with the Hezbollah militia that killed more than 1,000 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and 165 Israelis, most of them soldiers. Since then there has been some cross-border shelling and shelling, but at the right time and not on the scale of the current escalation. The last time Israel confirmed its attack on Lebanese territory was in April 2022. It is now pointing to Hamas for firing 34 rockets on Thursday, which is why it is bombing both that armed faction’s targets in southern Lebanon and the Palestinian sector it controls. 2007.
The Israeli army indicated in a statement that it “will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization to operate from Lebanon” and that it “holds the Lebanese state responsible for any shots coming from its territory.” The arrival of the Hezbollah militia, which is more numerous and better armed, and is an ally of Iran (Israel’s enemy), will give the conflict another dimension. Analysts agree that the attack would not have happened without the green light. Now, your Number twoNaim Qassem warned the “Zionist leaders” that “the entire axis of resistance is vigilant” and “their arrogance will not act on threats and intimidation, because the balance of deterrence still remains.”
a dialogue
The United Nations peacekeeping force deployed in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) issued a statement early on Friday indicating that its forces were warned of the bombing and were being listened to. and that the head of his mission, the Spaniard Aroldo Lázaro, was speaking with the authorities of the two neighboring countries. “The two sides said they did not want war,” the note added. The Lebanese army also published pictures of rocket launchers and missiles found in the area from which the rockets were launched, which it patrols. His State Department blamed Israel for the escalation and urged the international community to stop it.
And in Gaza, the Israeli Air Force bombed 10 points with fifty tons of explosives. Only injuries and property damage were reported. The same in Israel, where most of the missiles were intercepted at dawn on Friday by the Iron Dome anti-missile shield, but a missile hit a house in the town of Sderot, very close to Gaza.
The coincidence of Ramadan and the Jewish holiday of Passover was a fertile ground for this escalation. Part of the worshipers who prayed in Al-Aqsa barricaded themselves because the rumor was spreading about an Israeli extremist nationalist sacrificing an animal there. This is how the beginning of Passover was determined in the two synagogues that were built at that place, known in Hebrew as the Temple Mount and the holiest point in this religion. The Western Wall is its only remnant. In recent days, extremist Jewish groups have issued calls for the slaughter of goats and one man has been arrested. The Israeli police had made it clear that they would not allow this, but the Palestinians feared the desecration of the sanctuary and called for a continued presence in the compound to prevent it.
Videos of the attack on Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, ignited the fuse on social media. And you can see the occupation policemen firing rubber bullets, acting violently towards the believers, and arresting dozens of people inside the mosque. The same applies to the Palestinians who throw firecrackers and fireworks at them. An Israeli military command confirmed that the police entered the temple only after they had unsuccessfully negotiated eviction with about 400 Palestinians who were there, in addition to that some of them had stones and firecrackers. Last year, the Israeli police entered the Temple Mount during Ramadan, in response to the throwing of stones and firecrackers towards the Western Wall, which is located right at its feet.
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