Israel hits 80 Gaza targets after 30 rockets fired
October 27, 2018
Israeli jets have hit scores of targets in the Gaza Strip after the heaviest exchange of fire in weeks. Israeli border forces had shot and killed five Palestinians protesting along the perimeter fence.
Image: Reuters/A. Zakot
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Israel said its air force hit about 80 targets early Saturday, including a four-storey building used by Hamas as a headquarters.
Overnight, air raid sirens were heard in southern Israel as ten of the incoming rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system, two landed before they reached their targets and the rest fell in open areas.
Islamic Jihad, a smaller group which sometimes acts independently of Hamas, appeared to claim responsibility for the rocket fire. It issued a statement saying that it normally exercises restraint, but it "can no longer stand idle before the continued killing of innocents and bloodshed by the Israeli occupation."
Israel holds Hamas responsible for any fire that comes from Gaza.
Israeli airstrikes caused a fireball in Gaza cityImage: picture alliance/ZUMA/N. Alwaheidi
Egypt mediating for a ceasefire
The biggest rocket attacks since August came after the deaths on the border on Friday, and despite talk of progress in easing Israel's crippling 11-year blockade.
Following Egyptian mediation, authorities in Gaza and Israel had previously called a ceasefire.
Egyptian security officials have been talking separately to Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an attempt to restore calm along the border.
Palestinians have been protesting along the border since March 30, demanding an end to Israel's blockade of the territory and the right to return to lands from which they either fled or were driven from when Israel was founded in 1948.
Earlier on Saturday, Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus accused Syria and Iran of being involved in the rocket attack.
"Orders and incentives were given from Damascus with a clear involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards al-Quds force," Conricus told reporters. "Our response is not limited geographically."
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 213 Gazans have been killed by Israeli forces in recent protests, while one Israeli soldier was killed by a Palestinian sniper.
How the Gaza protests against Israel escalated this year
The origin of conflicts in the region could be dated back centuries but this year has seen some key events leading to an escalation in the tension between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza.
Image: Reuters/A. Cohen
Palestinian PM Rami Hamdallah targeted
The convoy of Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah of the West Bank-based Fatah group was targeted as he made a rare visit to Gaza on March 13. The Palestinian Authority said it held Hamas responsible, having failed to provide adequate security. Hamas claimed the attack was aimed at hurting efforts to achieve unity and reconciliation.
Image: Reuters/I. Abu Mustafa
Land Day march
Some 30,000 Palestinians took part in the first of the demonstrations on March 30, marking Land Day, named for the 1976 Arab protests against Israeli plans to expropriate land. Some demonstrators ran at the border fence and 16 were killed by Israeli troops with others injured, and some dying later.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Hams
Netanyahu: 'We will hurt them'
Speaking on April 9 in the Israeli town of Sderot, near Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "We have one clear and simple rule and we seek to express it constantly: If someone tries to attack you — rise up and attack him. We will not allow, here on the Gaza border, them to hurt us. We will hurt them."
Image: Getty Images/AFP/G. Tibbon
Protesters injured
Palestinians ran to help a young man injured during the border protest on April 13. Stones had been thrown at border guards and the Israeli troops fired on the demonstrators. Some 45 Palestinians died and hundreds were injured between March 30 and April 27.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Hams
Boy killed on April 20
Protest continued on April 20th, with some Palestinian protesters using kites to transport Molotov cocktails and firebombs over the fence. Israeli snipers killed at least four more Palestinians on April 20th, including a 15-year-old boy. The UN Middle East envoy dubbed the killing "outrageous."
Image: Getty Images/S. Khatib
May 15: US Embassy officially moved to Jerusalem from Tel-Aviv
US President Donald Trump's daugher Ivanka is part of the delegation that opened the new US Embassy in Jerusalem. The transfer of the embassy triggered a fresh wave of protests in which 62 people were killed. The deaths have considerably heightened tensions in the area.
Image: Reuters/R. Zvulun
US no longer seen as partner in Middle East negotiations
As the US celebrated its embassy move from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, Palestinian protests escalated. The events coincided with the 70th anniversary of the foundation of modern-day Israel, and Nakba Day, when Palestinians recall those who fled or were expelled as Israel was established.
Image: Reuters/I. Abu Mustafa
More than 60 people were killed in protests
Palestinians carried away a protester injured on May 15th after demonstrations marking the 70th anniversary of Nakba.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Khatib
Palestinian youths run from tear gas
Hamas official Salah al-Bardaweel said on Palestinian television that all but 12 of the dead were members of Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization is planning to pursue a war crimes complaint against Israel at the International Criminal Court.
Image: Reuters/I. Abu Mustafa
Israeli airstrikes pound Hamas military targets in Gaza
Following an increase in cross-border violence in mid-July, Israel pounded Hamas military targets in Gaza, while Palestinian militants fired more than 170 rockets and mortars into Israel. Two Palestinian boys, aged 15 and 16, were killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to Gaza's health ministry. Three Israelis were injured after a rocket landed on a residential home in the Israeli city of Sderot.
Image: picture-alliance/newscom/I. Mohamad
Israel temporarily closes its Kerem Shalom cargo crossing with the Gaza Strip
Days later, Israel blocked all fuel and gas transfers through the Kerem Shalom crossing with the Gaza Strip for six days "in light of the continued terrorist attempts of Hamas." Israel's defense ministry said essential food and medicine deliveries would still get through. The crossing had been shuttered to commercial trade a week earlier.
