At least five Palestinian children and one adult were killed this Friday by the impact of a rocket in the city of Jabalia, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
The Islamic Jihad attributed the attack to Israel, but the Army of Israel accused that it was an impact of a failed rocket from the Palestinian group.
These fatalities are added to the 15 already confirmed by the Israeli bombing in Gaza.
The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that in the last hours, and after the episode in Jabalia, the total number of Palestinians killed since the beginning this Friday of the current escalation of violence amounted to 24, including six children and two women.
Khaled al Batsh, a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), blamed Israel for the attack in Jabalia, while the Israeli army issued a statement in which it said it had thoroughly analyzed the incident and concluded that it was a launch. unsuccessful rocket attack by the Palestinian group.
“We have in our possession videos that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this incident was not the result of an Israel Defense Forces attack. Israeli security forces did not attack Jabalia in the last few hours. It has been conclusively proven that this incident was the result of a missed rocket fire launched by Islamic Jihad,” the Israeli government said.
escalation of violence
This episode took place within the framework of the second day of a bloody spike in tension, which has so far left more than 200 wounded in Gaza and some 20 in Israel.
Since the start of an Israeli offensive on the Strip on Friday, the IPF has fired some 400 rockets into Israel, most of which landed in unpopulated areas or were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system.
According to local media, the Army estimates that almost a hundred of the rockets launched from Gaza fell inside the Strip and failed to reach Israeli territory.
Israel, for its part, bombed dozens of installations suspected of belonging to Islamic Jihad, including what it said were weapons manufacturing and storage centers, military checkpoints and rocket launch sites. In addition, he bombed at least three residential buildings, in one of which he killed the YIP number in Gaza, Taysir al Jabari, on Friday.
The current spike in tension began this Friday with a strong Israeli “preemptive” offensive on Jihad targets in Gaza in the face of what the Army described as an “imminent threat” of attack by the group in retaliation after the arrest on Monday of one of their leaders during a raid in the occupied West Bank.
Israel sees the YIP’s ties to Iran as making the group a satellite of Tehran, which is seen by the Jewish state as an existential threat.