Palestinian militants vow to fight despite Gaza ceasefire
▶ Israeli hardliners call for harsher military response after violence sparked by death of prisoner Khader Adnan
Gaza was calm yesterday, amid a ceasefire agreed to by Palestinian armed groups and Israel after a spate of strikes on Tuesday.
Fighting between the two sides escalated following the death of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan. He died in Israeli custody on Tuesday after an 87-day hunger strike.
Sources in the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad said Adnan was one of its political leaders.
An umbrella group of armed factions in Gaza, including Hamas and PIJ, claimed responsibility for rocket attacks launched against Israel following his death.
Israel said it responded on Tuesday with tank fire.
Egyptian, Qatari and UN officials helped to broker the ceasefire, Reuters reported, quoting Palestinian officials.
A Palestinian man was killed and five people were wounded in Israeli strikes, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Facebook yesterday.
The man killed in Gaza city was identified by the ministry as Hashel Mubarak, 58.
Israel’s military said yesterday that 104 projectiles were fired from the enclave.
Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system intercepted 90 per cent of rockets, the military said.
It also said it was looking into how at least two projectiles hit urban areas, wounding three
foreign citizens. A spokesman for the army said Israel struck 16 targets in Gaza, including “a military post, weapons store, weapon manufacturing site” and a Hamas training site.
The truce was supposed to come into effect at 4am, but the PIJ fired at least two rockets an hour and a half later, eliciting no Israeli response.
Despite the ceasefire, the PIJ told Israel that “we haven’t started yet” in a video showing its members preparing arms.
The violence came amid increasing calls by Israeli politicians for a harsher military response. Members of the
far-right Otzma Yehudit party, which forms a part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, boycotted a parliamentary session yesterday over what it called a “feeble” response to recent tensions.
Despite a resounding victory for Mr Netanyahu four months ago, recent polls have highlighted plunging support from voters, leading to a surge in support for former defence minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity party.
MP Danny Danon, a member of Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party, said Israel’s response was “inviting the next round” of fighting.
National Missions Minister Orit Strock said yesterday that members of the government had been weak in their response to rising tensions, saying Gaza “is not paying a price for Hamas’s terrorism”.
“We should have awoken [to] several high rises destroyed in Gaza,” she said.
Following Adnan’s death on Tuesday morning, hundreds took to the streets in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to rally in support of the prisoner and mourn his death, which Palestinian leaders described as an assassination.
In the West Bank city of Hebron,
shops observed a general strike. Some protesters burnt tyres and threw stones at Israeli soldiers, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets in response.
Other Palestinian prisoners have staged hunger strikes, sometimes en masse, but none have died since 1992.
The ceasefire began as Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Damascus in the first visit by an Iranian leader to Syria since the civil war began.
Israel has struck targets in Syria in recent months, saying the country is allowing extremists linked to Iran to prepare attacks on Israel.