Attack follows overnight rocket fire from Palestinian coastal enclave
Israeli jets bombed Gaza overnight in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian coastal enclave, amid a sharp escalation in tensions following a deadly Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank. Israel said its armed forces had hit a military base and an underground rocket manufacturing site operated by Hamas, the militant group that has controlled the hemmed-in Gaza Strip since 2007. It added that the rockets that reached Israel were either intercepted or fell on open ground. No casualties were reported on either side. The overnight exchange of fire in Gaza followed the worst day of violence in the West Bank for years, after Israeli commandos on Thursday killed at least nine Palestinians, including one elderly woman, during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp that targeted militants from Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Islamic Jihad subsequently said it was responsible for Thursday night’s rocket fire. The spasm of violence, which follows months of near-nightly clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian militants, has exacerbated longstanding fears that the security situation in the West Bank — which forms the bulk of the Palestinian territories, but has been occupied by Israel since 1967 — could spiral out of control. Last year was the bloodiest for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, according to the UN, with Israeli forces killing 151 Palestinians in the territory after stepping up their activities there following a spate of attacks by Palestinians that began last spring and killed 31 Israelis in 2022.
The flare-up is the first big clash since Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline new government, widely seen as the most rightwing in Israel’s history, took office in December with ultranationalists in key security posts pledging to take a tougher stance against the Palestinians. Following the raid in Jenin, which Israel said was carried out to foil an imminent threat, the Palestinian Authority said it was stopping its security co-operation with Israel, which helps the Israeli security forces prevent attacks.
The PA has cancelled the co-operation before, most recently in 2020 when Netanyahu’s previous government considered a plan to annex parts of the West Bank. Co-operation resumed after Israel dropped the plan.