Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 10 people in the gaza strip including a senior palestinian militant and a five-year-old girl that triggered a barrage of rockets fired back at israel from gaza the israeli government says it targeted the islamic jihad militant group for what it called an imminent threat.
Israeli forces target an apartment building in gaza city just one of many airstrikes launched into the coastal strip israel says the attacks were in response to an imminent threat from palestinian-islamic jihad group the strikes come after israeli forces arrested a senior militant in the west bank early this week.
"Israel carried out a precise counter-terror operation against an immediate threat our fight is not with the people of gaza islamic jihad is an iranian proxy that wants to destroy the state of israel and kill innocent israelis the head of islamic jihad is in in tehran as we speak we will do whatever it takes to defend our people" said Prime Minister of Israel, Yair Lapid.
An islamic jihad commander was killed in the strikes and the group vowed to retaliate,
"This is a declaration of all-out war against the palestinian people we will respond to that this is a violation and disregard for all the efforts that have been made over the past days in order to restore calm we dealt positively with these efforts but the enemy was as usual treacherous and carried out this raid and now we clearly say that we will respond to this crime with all our might as a five-year-old girl is mourned fears of an escalation are rising"
Israeli jets continue to pound targets in gaza while palestinian militants have been firing rockets back into southern israel vermonters , this is the territory's worst escalation of violence since a war last year and it's worsening do people fear another war.
People are deeply worried about this especially in gaza you mentioned it they hardly recovered there from the last war in two in may 2021 now of course we don't know yet they're in the middle of an escalation right now whether this will take days or whether this will be a full blown war at the end but it has been certainly a very difficult night for people in the south of israel but also of course in the gaza strip.
Israeli military house continued to carry out airstrikes they said that they have targeted at least 30 sites it describes belonging to the palestinian militant group islamic jihad at the same time rockets have been launched all morning there have been air raid sirens so people in the south have to stay in their safe rooms in their bomb shelters now the israeli army says that over 190 rockets were fired since yesterday mainly in the south some in the center with the iron dome the defense system intercepting many of them some also fell in open areas and some also fell inside gaza that is according to the israeli army so what is being done to calm tensions between the two sides.
Well eventually you know this has to come to an end but again this has just started and the question is when and what is actually the outcome because gaza has seen many of such military escalations and four wars in the past a decade or so we heard some reactions already by the international community the UN special envoy for the middle east peace process has called for calm also saying you know, it's the civilians in the areas that are suffering the most from it there have been efforts.
Usually in the past and also last week leading up to this escalation by egypt that's traditionally the mediator between militant groups in gaze, in this case after the arrest of an islamic jihad leader in the west bank and israel but to no avail and we saw the attack yesterday then by israel on gaza leading now to this escalation so at the moment it's unclear you know where this is going and it's very difficult of course for people living there.