Palestinian Islamic Jihad declared Tuesday that it was preparing for war with Israel after the IDF carried out a dawn assassination of one of the terror group’s senior leaders in the northern Gaza Strip.
“These terrorist crimes are aggression and a declaration of war on the Palestinian people, and the enemy bears responsibility for them,” PIJ said in a statement following Israel’s targeted killing of Baha Abu al-Ata.
“The Al-Quds Brigades [PIJ’s military wing] and the valiant resistance, which announced a mobilization [of its fighters] and started to hit back against this aggression and terrorism, will continue to forcefully and courageously defend the dignity of the Palestinian people,” it said.
“We are going to war. [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has crossed all the red lines in assassinating Al-Quds Brigades Commander Baha Abu al-Ata. We will respond forcefully,” PIJ Secretary-General Ziad al-Nakhala told the Dar al-Hayat Arabic-language news site.
“The path of fighting and resistance is on the rise and the crime of assassinating the commander Abu Salim will not come to pass without a punishment,” Hamas added, using Abu al-Ata’s nickname.
Speaking at the funeral for Abu al-Ata, Hamas official Ismail Radwan said at Omari Mosque that Hamas’s Qassam Brigades military wing would stand shoulder to shoulder with Islamic Jihad.
An 8-year-old girl was among 30 people who required medical treatment Tuesday as Palestinian terror groups fired over 160 rockets at the country in response to the targeted killing of a senior commander in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group.
The girl lost consciousness during a rocket attack on the central city of Holon and was hospitalized in serious condition. The girl apparently suffered a bout of heart arrhythmia brought on by anxiety after her family rushed to the stairwell in their building to take shelter.
She was taken to Wolfson Medical Center in the city, where a doctor told Channel 12 that upon arrival she was given medication and electrical cardioversion treatment.
The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday afternoon launched a campaign of retaliatory airstrikes against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group in the Gaza Strip following approximately six hours of unanswered rocket attacks on central and southern Israel from the enclave.
The military said its airstrikes targeted Palestinian Islamic Jihad underground facilities and training camps. The IDF said these underground facilities were used “for storage and manufacturing of weapons.”
These sites are seen as critical facilities for the terror group, which PIJ has invested large sums of money to construct.
IDF aircraft also bombed a group of Islamic Jihad operatives in the northern Gaza Strip as they prepared to fire rockets at Israel around 1 p.m., the military said.
One of the terrorists was killed and three others were wounded in the strike, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said.
In the predawn hours of Tuesday morning, Israeli Air Force jets fired precision ammunition at a building in the Shejaiya area of Gaza City where PIJ senior commander Baha Abu al-Ata was located, assassinating him and killing his wife, in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet security service.
Shortly after Abu al-Ata’s assassination, the PIJ began launching dozens of both short- and long-range rockets, firing the majority of them at the Israeli communities around Gaza and a smaller number at major cities in central Israel throughout the morning.
Israel largely refrained from retaliating for the first six hours of the rocket attacks, during which an estimated 150 projectiles were fired from Gaza, with the exception of one airstrike on Tuesday morning against two PIJ members whom the IDF said were preparing to launch projectiles at Israel. At least one of them was killed and the other was injured in the strike, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
Approximately 60 incoming rockets were shot down by the Iron Dome missile defense system, according to unofficial tallies that were not immediately confirmed by the IDF.
Shortly after noon, following a meeting of the security cabinet, the IDF announced it was launching retaliatory strikes against Islamic Jihad targets in the Strip.
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