“In response to rocket attacks on Israeli territory, the army is currently attacking a large number of targets belonging to the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip,” the Israeli army said in a statement sent at 21:33.
In addition, air raid warning sirens were turned on in southern Israeli cities near the Gaza Strip.
“The sirens sounded in the sector adjacent to the Gaza Strip,” the same military statement said late on Sunday.
The Egyptian-brokered ceasefire included Cairo’s commitment to “work towards the release of two prisoners,” Mohammed Al-Hindi Bassem Saadi and Khalid Awadeh, head of the JIP’s political wing, said in a statement.
Last Monday’s arrest of Bassem Saadi, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, led to the current outbreak of violence.
The Israeli army launched an operation on Friday, billed as a “preemptive strike” against Islamic Jihad, in which its top military leaders in Gaza, Taysir al-Jabari and Khaled Mansour, were killed, as well as several fighters of the group.
The deaths of the military leaders were confirmed by the Islamic Jihad organization, which Israel, the United States of America and the European Union consider “terrorist”.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the Gaza operation would continue “for as long as necessary”, calling Saturday’s attack that killed Khalid Mansour an “extraordinary result”.
Israeli authorities justified the operation, launched on Friday, on fear of reprisals from Islamic Jihad after Bassem al-Saadi was arrested on August 1 in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel.
Over the past two days, about 40 Islamic Jihad members have been arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank.
Before the Islamic Jihad announcement, the Palestinian armed movement fired several mortars at Israel and Jerusalem, which, according to its army, were intercepted by the Israeli missile defense system.
In the Gaza Strip, 17 Palestinians, including nine children, were killed today in Israeli army raids in Jabaliya, Gaza City and Rafah, according to the Palestinian armed movement Hamas, which is in power in the enclave, which has been under an Israeli blockade for more than 15 years. . .
Since the start of this Israeli operation against Islamic Jihad on Friday, “43 Palestinians have been martyred, including 15 children” and “311 people have been injured,” according to the latest Hamas health ministry report.
The director of the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza said that the institutions under his supervision urgently needed medicines and electricity to continue caring for the wounded.
Gaza’s only power plant was shut down on Saturday due to fuel shortages, four days after Israel closed roads connecting the enclave, citing security concerns.
Before the mortar attack today, sirens were sounded from Gaza regarding shells in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ashkelon.
The clash between Israel and Islamic Jihad is the worst since the clash between Israel and Hamas in May 2021. According to local authorities, 260 Palestinians, including militants, and 14 Israelis, including a soldier, were killed in 11 days. .