As tensions following police raids on the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem this week threatened to spiral out of control, Israel’s military struck targets in Lebanon and Gaza early on Friday in response to rocket attacks it blamed on Hamas.
Friday’s shooting incident in the occupied West Bank, according to Israeli authorities, resulted in the deaths of two individuals.
The Israeli military claimed that a vehicle near the Hamra settlement was shot at. According to the Magen David Adom ambulance service, two women perished and a third suffered serious injuries.
The Associated Press reports that “Israeli police wielding batons descended on crowds of Palestinian worshippers, who chanted slogans praising Hamas as they tried to squeeze into the site” on Friday before dawn prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
The report continued, “An hour later, according to videos, people leaving the prayers staged a massive protest on the limestone courtyard, with Palestinians raising their fists and shouting in support of Hamas rocket fire.” It also stated that the Israeli police entered the compound by force.
Al Jazeera also shared a video of panicked people fleeing as Israeli forces dispersed a group of Palestinian worshippers who were trying to go to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem to pray in the morning on the third Friday of Ramazan.
The worshipers are also shown eating and drinking from tables as they eat their Sehri meal to break their fast.
The Israeli police, according to the Associated Press, “did not comment on the earlier beatings but said security forces entered the holy compound after prayers in response to’masked suspects’ who threw rocks toward officers at one of the gates,” but they did not discuss the earlier beatings.
It also stated that the Israeli military “pounded Gaza with more airstrikes on Friday, hitting 10 targets it described as underground tunnels, along with weapons production and development sites belonging largely to the Hamas militant group.” This information was included in the report.
The Associated Press stated, “There were no immediate reports of casualties in Gaza,” but the Palestinian Health Ministry stated, “The Palestinian Health Ministry said that one of the strikes caused some damage to a children’s hospital in Gaza City.”
With respect to circumstance after the assault recently, that’s what it revealed “even as quiet got back to Al-Aqsa a couple of hours after the eruption of brutality, the circumstance stayed tense in front of noontime Friday supplications”.
As Israel claimed that its jets had hit 10 targets, including Hamas’s weapons manufacturing and development sites and tunnels, the violence in Gaza continued to escalate. Hamas controls the blockaded southern coastal strip.
The military announced that it had also struck three Hamas infrastructure targets in southern Lebanon at around 4 a.m. Residents of the Rashidiyeh refugee camp near the southern city of Tyre reported hearing three loud explosions.
Hamas stated, “We strongly condemn the blatant Zionist aggression against Lebanon near Tyre at dawn today.”
Two Lebanese security sources said the strike hit a little design on farmland close to the area from which the rockets had been sent off before. Witnesses told Reuters that the strike appeared to have left a large crater in farmland in the south.
An individual from Lebanon’s Polite Protection at the scene on Friday morning said there were no losses.
However, according to the Associated Press, “Israeli missiles struck an open field in the southern Lebanese town of Qalili, according to an Associated Press photographer and residents, killing several sheep and injuring minor residents, including Syrian refugees,” the incident occurred near the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh.
Israeli officials blamed Hamas for rocket attacks on northern Israeli areas from Lebanon, which prompted the strikes.
According to the military, Lebanon fired 34 rockets, of which air defense systems stopped 25. Since Israel and the heavily armed Hezbollah movement fought a war in 2006, this was the largest attack of its kind.
Following a meeting of the security cabinet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “Israel’s response, tonight and later, will exact a significant price from our enemies.”
Screengrab of Israeli Top state leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s tweet he made on April 7. — Twitter/Netanyahu During the Israeli strikes in Gaza, rockets were fired in response, and sirens were sounded in Israeli cities and towns along the border. However, no serious injuries were reported, and only one rocket damaged a house in the southern town of Sderot.
Israeli police raids at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramazan, which this year coincides with the Jewish Passover holiday, have escalated tensions, prompting the cross-border strikes.