Several thousand Palestinians protested along the Gaza border Friday, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that war with terror groups in the Gaza Strip could break out “at any moment.”
Some 4,000 Palestinians took part in demonstrations with several hundred rioting and throwing rocks and explosive devices at IDF troops who responded with tear gas and occasional live fire.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said 30 people had been wounded, including 15 from live fire. The IDF had no immediate comment.
Two Palestinian teens were killed in last week’s clashes, which the IDF called “especially violent” and senior Hamas official Ismail Radwan on Friday warned Israel to act with restraint, saying the “resistance is a sword defending the Palestinian people.”
Nevertheless, Hamas issued a call to those taking part in the protests to keep away from the fence and not give the IDF an excuse to open fire.
The protests come after a week of tension in the south.
Rockets have been fired at Israeli cities and communities multiple times over the past week — with most intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system or landing in open areas — drawing retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. On Tuesday night, two rockets were launched at Ashdod and Ashkelon during a campaign rally in Ashdod by the premier, who was whisked off the stage by his bodyguards to take shelter.
In his comments, which he made after returning from a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu asserted, “An operation in Gaza could happen at any moment, including four days before the elections. The date of the elections does not factor [into a decision to go to war].”
Israelis go to the polls on Tuesday, September 17. Netanyahu, who is facing stiff competition in his bid to reclaim the premiership, has been seeking to hammer home his credentials and past achievements in security and diplomacy, but ongoing attacks from Gaza have remained a nagging thorn in his side, repeatedly exploited by his political rivals.
For many of those rivals, the scenes of Netanyahu being forced to take shelter from rockets provided a counterpoint to the image he has attempted to cultivate as “Mr. Security,” highlighting what they say is his government’s failure to deal with ongoing attacks from Gaza terror groups
“There probably won’t be a choice but to launch an operation, a war with the terror forces in Gaza,” the prime minister said in a radio interview with the Kan public broadcaster, kicking off a media blitz five days before the elections. “There probably won’t be a choice but to topple the Hamas regime. Hamas doesn’t exert its sovereignty in the Strip and doesn’t prevent attacks.”
“We have a situation in which a terror group that launches rockets has taken over, and doesn’t rein in rogue factions even when it wants to,” Netanyahu said of Hamas, which has ruled the Strip since it took over in a bloody coup in 2007, and which says it seeks Israel’s destruction. It has fought three wars with Israel since 2008.
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