GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Calm returned Tuesday after a two-day flare-up in and around Gaza as a truce between Israel and Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad appeared to take hold after initial jitters.
The Israeli military reported no rocket fire from the territory during the morning and AFP correspondents in Gaza reported no Israeli strikes.
The main border crossing between the Palestinian enclave and Israel was due to reopen at 9a.m. to allow medical cases and foreign nationals to leave, Palestinian officials said.
Islamic Jihad announced the truce on Monday evening but later briefly backtracked, accusing Israel of breaching it.
A rocket or mortar round fired from Gaza hit open ground in Israel shortly before midnight Monday, a spokeswoman for Shaar Hanegev regional council said.
Islamic Jihad is the second largest militant group in Gaza after dominant Islamist movement Hamas.
As with other Gaza truces, there was no official Israeli confirmation and the army ordered the parents of some 65,000 pupils in communities near the Gaza border to keep their children home for a second day.
Islamic Jihad fired more than 50 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel after the army killed one of its fighters on Sunday morning.
Many were intercepted by Israeli air defenses and there were no reports of casualties. One rocket hit a playground but it was empty at the time.
Israeli fighter jets and helicopters responded with strikes on Islamic Jihad targets across Gaza, as well as in neighboring Syria.
Sunday’s fighting was the most intense between Israel and Islamic Jihad since November, when Israeli air strikes killed senior commanders from the group.
That three-day flare-up saw 35 Palestinians killed and more than 100 wounded, according to official figures.
There were no Israeli deaths despite hundreds of rockets being fired from Gaza.
Islamic Jihad did not accept a wider truce Hamas agreed with Israel in late 2018 and renewed after successive flare-ups last year.
Under the truce, Israel has allowed Hamas ally Qatar to provide fuel for Gaza’s sole power station and millions of dollars for cash payouts to the needy, among other relaxations of its more than decade-old blockade in exchange for a let-up in the violence.
Hamas and Israel last fought a full-scale war in 2014, but smaller flare-ups have been relatively common.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is battling for re-election on March 2 in the shadow of an impending corruption trial, threatened an “extensive campaign” to end the rocket fire.
Israel has fought three wars with Palestinian militants in Gaza since 2008, most recently in 2014.
Calm returns after two-day flare-up in and around Gaza
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Calm returns after two-day flare-up in and around Gaza
- The Israeli military reported no rocket fire from the territory during the morning
- There were no Israeli deaths despite hundreds of rockets being fired from Gaza
US believes Israel, Lebanon have agreed terms to end Israel-Hezbollah conflict
Israel’s government on Monday said it was moving toward a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there were still outstanding issues.
Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister
- ICC issued arrest warrants on Thursday against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
- Several EU states have said they will meet commitments under the statute if needed
FIUGGI: Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfil the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity.
Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.
“The states that signed the Rome convention must implement the court’s decision. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.
Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life
Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.
2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA
- The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night
Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike
- The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
- Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.
