The Israeli military launched airstrikes against targets in Gaza on Friday that killed an Islamic militant group leader and nine other people, which sparked retaliatory rocket attacks towards the Israeli communities.
Taysir al-Jabari, a commander of the al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of the Islamic Jihad, was killed in an air raid on an apartment in the Palestine Tower in the centre of Gaza City, the group said.
The health ministry in Gaza said at least 10 people were killed including a five-year-old child were killed in the airstrikes from the Israeli forces.
The five-year-old girl, Alaa Qaddoum, was killed in a missile attack along with her father while they rode a motorcycle to go shopping for groceries.
“Her mother Rasha is in great shock. She lost her daughter and her husband in a blink of an eye and left behind three children. We are all shocked. What is the fault of an innocent five-year-old girl to be killed in this way? Family member Mohammad Abu Jabal told Al Jazeera.
The violence on Friday drew warnings of retaliation from Palestinian militant groups and raised the possibility of extended conflict.
The airstrikes followed almost a week of rising tensions between Islamic Jihad which often acts independently from Hamas and Israel. Israel arrested one of the commanders in the West Bank this week, which sparked threats of reprisal from its Gaza leadership.
Israel said the Islamic Jihad has been poised to respond with revenge attack, and it had targeted Mr al-Jabari and others pre-emptively.
“Israel will not allow the terrorist organisations to set the agenda in the Gaza Strip and threaten the citizens of the State of Israel,” Prime Minister Yair Lapid of Israel said shortly after the attack.
Friday’s attack marks the most extensive military engagement launched by the Israeli forces since the 11-day air war a year ago which claimed the lives of more than 250 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
Source: Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, The New York Times, NDTV, image from Twitter
