GAZA CITY, (Palestinian Territories): Israel’s army and Gaza militants traded heavy cross-border fire Wednesday, with 22 Palestinians killed over two days amid the worst escalation of violence to hit the coastal territory in months.
Sirens in the Tel Aviv area and Israel’s south warned of incoming rockets in a fresh evening salvo, with an AFP reporter in Gaza observing dozens of launches as Israeli officials said Egypt was working on a possible truce with the militant Islamic Jihad.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant noted “over 400” launches from Gaza late Wednesday, as the Islamic Jihad said Palestinian “resistance” was keeping up its fire.
Earlier in the day, smoke billowed from the densely populated coastal enclave after Israel announced it was targeting rocket launch sites of the Islamic Jihad.
Gaza’s health ministry said seven people were killed, a day after Israeli strikes on the Palestinian territory left 15 dead. Four of those killed Wednesday were fighters with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the group said in a statement.
Israel’s air defences intercepted rockets above the coastal city of Ashkelon and elsewhere in the south, AFP photographers witnessed.
In a televised address late Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “still in the midst of the campaign,” noting that “no Israeli civilian has been wounded up to now”.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has escalated since Netanyahu’s latest coalition, including extreme right and ultra-Orthodox parties, took office in December.
It has come against the backdrop of Israel’s biggest domestic crisis in decades around now-shelved judicial reforms proposed by the government of Netanyahu, himself on trial for corruption he denies.
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