Israel hits Gaza amid unrust over raid

Isabel Debre | January 27, 2023

Israeli forces have killed nine Palestinians, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman, in the deadliest single incident in the occupied West Bank in two decades, Palestinian officials say.

Two rockets were fired from Gaza early on Friday and Israel responded with air strikes on the territory, further escalating tensions.

The Israeli military said both rockets were intercepted by its Iron Dome missile defence system. 

It was the first such attack from the militant Hamas-ruled territory since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a far-right government that has pledged a tough line against Palestinian militancy.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the strikes.

The raid in the Jenin refugee camp and the rocket fire increases the risk of a major flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian fighting and casts a shadow on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s expected trip to the region next week.

Raising the stakes, the Palestinian Authority said it would halt the ties that its security forces maintain with Israel in a shared effort to contain Islamic militants.

Previous threats have been short-lived, in part because of the benefits the authority enjoys from the relationship and also due to US and Israeli pressure to maintain it.

The PA already has limited control over scattered enclaves in the West Bank, and almost none over militant strongholds such as the Jenin camp.

But the announcement could pave the way for Israel to step up operations it says are needed to prevent attacks.

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, had earlier threatened revenge for the raid. 

The strikes early on Friday targeted training sites for Palestinian militant groups, the military said.

Witnesses and local media reported that Israeli drones fired two missiles at a militant base in central Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Israeli forces went on heightened alert as Palestinians filled the streets across the West Bank, chanting in solidarity with Jenin. 

PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said President Mahmoud Abbas had decided to cut security co-ordination in “light of the repeated aggression against our people, and the undermining of signed agreements”, referring to commitments from the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. 

He also said the Palestinians would complain to the UN Security Council, International Criminal Court and other international bodies.

The PA last cut security co-ordination with Israel in 2020, over Netanyahu’s drive to annex the occupied West Bank, but resumed co-operation six months later.

Barbara Leaf, the top US diplomat for the Middle East, said the administration was deeply concerned about the situation, and civilian casualties reported in Jenin were “quite regrettable”

But she also said the Palestinian announcement to suspend security ties was a mistake.

“We want to see them move back in the other direction,” she said, adding: “They need to engage with each other.”

Israel and the Palestinians have not held serious peace talks in well over a decade.

Thursday’s gun battle that left nine dead and 20 wounded erupted when Israel’s military conducted a rare daytime operation in the Jenin camp that it said was meant to prevent an imminent attack on Israelis.

The camp, where the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group has a major foothold, has been a focus of near-nightly Israeli arrest raids.

Hamas’ armed wing claimed four of the dead as members, while Islamic Jihad said three others belonged to the group. 

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade also claimed one of the dead, and the Palestinian health ministry identified the 61-year-old woman killed as Magda Obaid.

Later in the day, Israeli forces fatally shot a 22-year-old and wounded two others, the health ministry said, as Palestinians confronted Israeli troops north of Jerusalem to protest Thursday’s raid.

Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks.

Israel’s new national security minister, far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, who seeks to grant legal immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot Palestinians, posted a video of himself congratulating security forces.

UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was “deeply alarmed and saddened” by the violence.