Tag: Islamic Jihad

Israel has reported the arrest of 200 members affiliated with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups in the past week. These individuals have been taken into Israeli territory for questioning, marking a significant move in the ongoing security situation in the region.

In an official statement, it has been disclosed that a number of suspects, affiliated with groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, were discovered hiding among the civilian population. Some of these individuals voluntarily surrendered, as revealed by the statement, underscoring the complexities of security operations in the region.

Israel says 700 Palestinian militants have been arrested since it launched its military operation and invasion of Gaza with the aim of eliminating Hamas.

Hamas says mostly women and children are being killed by the Israelis.

The BBC is unable to verify the claims.

Israel launched its retaliatory operation after Hamas fighters crossed from Gaza into southern Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages.

At least 20,000 people have been killed and 50,000 injured in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel has kept up its bombing campaign in Gaza – ordering civilians to flee.

The UN said the latest order affected 150,000 people in the middle of the Strip.

“People in Gaza are people,” wrote Thomas White from UNWRA, the agency for Palestinian refugees. “They are not pieces on a checkerboard – many have already been displaced several times.”

The latest evacuation order impacted people in the Bureij refugee camp, who were told to head towards Deir al-Balah city further south. A medic named Ziad told Reuters news agency he was left asking where to go, as there was “no safe place”.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Saturday that Bureij had been shelled. Additional strikes on the Jabalia and Nuseirat camps had left “dozens” dead, it said.

An adviser to the Israeli prime minister has acknowledged “terrible suffering” in Gaza – but told the BBC this was because the territory’s Hamas leadership “don’t give a hoot” for the people there.

The suffering “shouldn’t have happened” but came about after a “declaration of war” by Hamas on 7 October, said Mark Regev.

Saturday’s joint statement by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and internal security service Shin Bet said the questioning of 200 fighters followed the arrests in Gaza of “hundreds of suspects involved in terrorist activities”.

The BBC is not able to independently verify all battlefield claims. However, it did verify video earlier this month showing the detention of dozens of Palestinian men in the north Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the president of the UN Security Council has said a resolution adopted on Friday represents a crucial step towards averting a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

On Friday, the council adopted a resolution that aimed to introduce “extended humanitarian pauses and corridors” throughout Gaza.

The vote followed days of negotiations to avoid a veto by Israel’s key ally, the US.

But the motion fell short of calling for an immediate ceasefire in the war.

The US and Russia abstained on the vote, while the 13 other members of the council – including the UK, which had previously abstained on a similar resolution – backed the text, which called for creating conditions “for a sustainable cessation of hostilities”.

The resolution also demanded that parties “allow, facilitate and enable the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian population throughout the Gaza Strip”.

Hamas criticised what it said was an “insufficient step” to meet the humanitarian needs of people in Gaza, and accused the US of working hard to “empty this resolution of its essence”.

The resolution also called for “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”. The Israeli military urged the international community and international organisations to enforce it.

UN Secretary General António Guterres said Israel’s offensive was creating “massive obstacles” to the distribution of aid in Gaza.

After days of fighting that cost the lives of at least 35 individuals, practically all of them Palestinians, Israel and Islamic Jihad decided to end hostilities on Saturday.

It was uncertain whether or not the ceasefire will hold or last when it was set to begin at 10 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET), according to Egyptian authorities in Gaza who helped negotiate it. Minutes after the ceasefire was due to go into effect, rockets were still being fired from Gaza, a CNN producer in the area witnessed.

More than an hour after the time the ceasefire was due to take effect, sirens continued to sound in Israel, warning of incoming rocket fire, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched more airstrikes on targets in Gaza, minutes before the ceasefire was due to come into effect.

The head of Israel’s National Security Council Tzachi Hanegbi thanked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi Saturday night, and expressed Israel’s appreciation for Egypt’s vigorous efforts to bring about a ceasefire, a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. Hanegbi was acting on the guidance of Netanyahu, the statement said.

Hanegbi said Israel’s response to the Egyptian initiative means “quiet will be answered quietly, and if Israel is attacked or threatened, it will continue to do everything it needs to do in order to defend itself.”

Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement that runs the Gaza Strip, issued a statement praising Palestinian resistance factions after the ceasefire appeared to take hold.

Hamas “hails the Joint Operations Room of the Palestinian Resistance Factions for defending the Palestinian people against the most recent Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip,” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qasem said.

He added that “the unity of the Palestinian resistance is evidence of the Israeli occupation’s failure to provoke strife within the resistance.”

In a statement, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland welcomed the ceasefire and urged “all sides” to observe it.

“I look forward to the immediate restoration of humanitarian access and all social and economic measures to support Palestinian livelihoods in Gaza,” he added.

The violence this week left at least 33 Palestinians dead in Gaza and at least two people in Israel – an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man from Gaza working in Israel.

Word of the agreement came near the end of a day of intense fighting. A rocket launched from Gaza killed a Palestinian man working in Israel and seriously wounded another, Israel medical authorities said Saturday, as cross-border fire showed little signs of easing.

The two men were working in the Negev desert in southern Israel and were hit by shrapnel. IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht tweeted Saturday that the two men were brothers.

The Palestinian man who died is the second death in Israel due to rocket fire from Gaza since hostilities broke out on Tuesday morning.

The incident came as Israel’s military pounded targets in Gaza Saturday while Palestinian militants fired more rockets.

The IDF said it launched a series of attacks on sites which it said belong to Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.

Israel accuses the group of planning attacks and since the flare-up began on Tuesday has killed six of its commanders.

In a televised speech following the ceasefire, Islamic Jihad’s secretary general Ziyad al-Nakhala acknowledged those losses and said the group was prepared to take up arms in the future.

“We are emerging from this battle with our weapons in our hands, and our fighters are still in the field, ready at all times to fight any aggression,” he said.

Islamic Jihad is the second largest armed group in Gaza after Hamas.

More than 1,200 rockets have been launched so far at Israel, said the IDF, which has struck more than 370 targets in Gaza as part of its “Shield and Arrow” campaign, in its fifth day as the ceasefire was declared.

Videos from Gaza showed that the airstrikes appeared to have also hit at least two civilian homes in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, but no injuries were reported.

Asked about the latest strikes by CNN, the IDF said that in the last 24 hours, they struck operational residences used as headquarters and command and control centers by the Jihad terrorists.

In its statement, the military said IDF fighter jets and aircraft struck launching sites for mortar shells and rockets “used by Islamic Jihad to fire projectiles toward Israel over the last few days.”

On Friday, at the beginning of an operation the al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad called “Revenge of the Free,” Palestinian militants launched rockets towards Jerusalem for the first time, as well as Tel Aviv and Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.Clashes also took place on Saturday morning in the occupied West Bank and at least two Palestinian men were killed, Palestinian officials said.

Sa’ed Jihad Shaker Mashah, 32, and Adnan Waseem Yousef Al-Araj, 19, were shot in the head with live bullets, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. At least three other people were injured, the ministry said.

The clash took place in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus in the northern part of the West Bank.

The IDF and Shin Bet security agency said IDF and Israel Border Police forces were raiding “a hideout belonging to terror operatives” in the camp.