GAZA CITY: At least one person was killed and five others injured in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian health officials said on Wednesday.
This followed hours of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in the besieged enclave following the death of a prominent hunger-striking prisoner.
The victim of the bombardment was identified as Hashel Mubarak, 58, from the north of Gaza City.
Mubarak’s family said he was injured by falling debris and died at the hospital.
He was the first Palestinian from Gaza to be killed since August 2022’s escalation between Israel and Islamic Jihad, which lasted for three days.
Israeli warplanes fired missiles at 16 sites, regarded as military installations belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in various areas of the Gaza Strip.
The shelling also caused partial damage to a school and some houses adjacent to those sites.
An Israeli army statement said: “During the night hours, the IDF launched a series of raids targeting Hamas sites, compounds, and interests in the Gaza Strip, including a terrorist tunnel in Khan Yunis.”
A tense ceasefire held on Wednesday, hours after Palestinian militants launched around 100 rockets into southern Israel in response to the death on Tuesday of Khader Adnan, 45, an Islamic Jihad leader, who had been on hunger strike while held captive by Israel for 86 days.
The Palestinian factions also fired barrages of rockets toward Israeli towns during the night and during the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Egypt, Qatar and the UN brokered a ceasefire at 4 a.m.
Local media quoted a Palestinian source as saying: “The ceasefire agreement will be simultaneous and conditional on the commitment of both parties. The agreement was the result of mediation by parties to stop the Israeli aggression.”
Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of Hamas, said he was in contact with Egypt, Qatar as well as Tor Wennesland, UN special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops destroyed the houses of two Palestinians who it said carried out deadly attacks against Israeli civilians.
After several hours of the Gaza conflict, the military wings of Islamic Jihad and Hamas published footage of the firing of rockets at Israeli towns, as well as attempts to fire anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli warplanes.
Hisham Qassim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, said the confrontation with the Israeli occupation proved that the “Palestinian people at home and abroad are united in the face of the Israeli occupation and its aggressive policies toward the Palestinian people.”
The sounds of the jets and the violent Israeli bombardment in Gaza refreshed people’s memory of past horrors, and they feared the outbreak of a long escalation or a fifth war.
Randa Abu Hamid, a housewife and mother of five children, said: “It was a very harsh night. We were watching the news and waiting for the Israeli bombing, and when we heard it, it was very terrifying. My children could not sleep until the morning hours because of fear and anxiety.”
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said on Wednesday: “The main effort of the Israeli army at the present time is concentrated in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
“Israel had no interest in being drawn into a large and prolonged conflict in Gaza, and more importantly, such a conflict would require the mobilization of large reserves and could continue for a long time.”
Ayman Al-Rafati, a political analyst close to Hamas, said: “The occupation is afraid of an expansion of (the) escalation. It fears that other factions might join in, making it a multifront and complicated confrontation.”
Expressing fear that the escalation could move to the West Bank, he said: “The response to the assassination of the martyr Sheikh Khader Adnan will not stop, (and) is likely to escalate significantly in the occupied West Bank during the coming hours.”
