The Palestinian death toll rose to 24, including 6 children, as a result of the raids launched by Israel for the second day in a row in the Gaza Strip, targeting mainly the Islamic Jihad movement, which responded with rockets, according to the Ministry of Health in the Strip.
In a statement, the ministry announced the fall of “24 martyrs, including 6 children, a woman and an elderly woman, and 203 different injuries since the beginning of the Israeli aggression on Gaza,” while Israel denied in a statement its responsibility for the killing of children in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Israeli government said in a statement that its forces “did not bomb Jabalia during the past hours,” adding, “It has been conclusively proven that the incident was the result of a failed missile launch by the Islamic Jihad.”
Israel announced Saturday that it is preparing for a “week” of military operations, with Saturday intensifying raids on the Gaza Strip.
Sirens sounded in Tel Aviv on Saturday, while Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, announced in a press statement its responsibility for firing rockets into the city.
The Israeli army announced, on Saturday, the assassination of a leader of the Islamic Jihad movement, in light of the continuous escalation of violence, which claimed at least 15 deaths on the Palestinian side.
And on Saturday, the Israeli army announced the assassination of another Islamic Jihad leader, and said in a statement that “in the specific and joint operation of the IDF and the Shin Bet in the Rafah area, the so-called Khaled Mansour, commander of the southern region of the terrorist Islamic Jihad movement, and one of its most prominent leaders.
Mansour’s assassination comes after the assassination of Taysir al-Jabari, also a leader in the movement, in an Israeli strike.
“We are at the culmination of a just and important operation aimed primarily at protecting the citizens of Israel and the sovereignty of the State of Israel,” said the Israeli Chief of Staff, General Aviv Kohavi, during his inspection of the Military Southern Command.
“The region witnessed here several days in which the people of the south experienced a more complex feeling, and I and you have great appreciation for their steadfastness and ability to face these challenges, but the time has come for responses,” Kohavi said.
He continued, “Our response is a clear response. Our goal is first to prevent any sabotage operation, and secondly to deal a fatal blow to the Islamic Jihad organization. Here, as well as in Judea and Samaria and in every other arena, this organization is being pursued and now it is under attack and we have plans of various kinds. We will not allow any organization here. Or in the north, or in Judea and Samaria, and everywhere, undermining the sovereignty of the State of Israel.”
In the West Bank, Israeli forces arrested 19 members of Islamic Jihad, which Israel, the United States and the European Union consider a “terrorist organization”.