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from May 11

from https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-kills-senior-gaza-commander-militants-fire-rockets-across-border-2023-05-11/

Israel kills senior Gaza commanders as rockets cause first death in Israel
By Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams
May 11, 20231:52 PM PDTUpdated 18 days ago

Summary
Netanyahu says operations proceeding at full pace
Egypt tries to calm situation, but no progress yet
Shoukry urges 'peace-sponsoring countries to intervene'
Five senior Islamic Jihad figures killed since Tuesday
GAZA, May 11 (Reuters) - Israel killed the head of Islamic Jihad's
rocket force and his deputy, pressing an operation that has cost 30
lives in Gaza including women and children, while Palestinian
cross-border rocket salvoes inflicted a first fatality in Israel on
Thursday.

Amid mediation efforts by Egypt, neither side seemed ready to douse the
worst flare-up since August, now in its third day.

"We are at the height of a campaign, both offensive and defensive,"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a videotaped statement
issued during a visit to an air base.

"Whoever comes to harm us - his blood is forfeit."

The deaths of Ali Ghali and Ahmed Abu Daqqa brought to five the number
of senior figures from Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad killed since
Israel began striking Gaza early on Tuesday.

Two gunmen from a splinter group died in a separate strike on Thursday.
The identities of two men killed elsewhere were not immediately clear.
Four women and six children have also died.

But Islamic Jihad, the second-biggest armed group in Gaza after the
ruling Hamas Islamists, kept up volleys of rockets.

"We will not retreat and the assassinations will only make us stronger.
Our revenge continues," it said in a communique.

The hundreds of rockets launched have set off sirens as far north as Tel
Aviv. Some 1.5 million Israelis - 16% of the population - have been
ordered to shelters, military spokesperson Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari said.

While Iron Dome and David's Sling interceptors have shot down 96% of
rockets engaged, according to the military, one hit a residential
building in Rehovot on Thursday. Medics said an elderly man was killed,
the first person killed in Israel in the latest round of fighting, and
five other people were wounded.

After more than a year of resurgent Israeli-Palestinian violence that
has killed more than 140 Palestinians and at least 19 Israelis and
foreigners since January, the latest escalation drew international calls
for a ceasefire.

But Cairo, which hosted senior Islamic Jihad official Mohammad al-Hindi
for talks, was circumspect about prospects.

FRUITLESS MEDIATION SO FAR

[1/9] Rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel, in Gaza May 11.
REUTERS/Mohammed Salem



"Egypt's efforts to calm things down and resume the political process
have not yet borne fruit," Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told reporters.

Meeting Jordanian, French and German counterparts in Berlin, Shoukry
urged "peace-sponsoring countries to intervene and stop the attacks" and
said Israel must "stop the unilateral measures that aim to destroy the
future of the Palestinian state".

Islamic Jihad spurns coexistence with Israel and preaches its
destruction. Among terms for a truce, it wants an end to Israeli strikes against its leaders. Israel has rejected that.

"We have resumed the 'elimination' policy - big time," Israeli Foreign
Minister Eli Cohen told Channel 12 TV. "If and when we enter a
ceasefire, it won't be with preconditions."

Israel appeared to be hoping that Islamic Jihad, depleted of rockets and commanders, would halt hostilities unilaterally. Hagari declined to be
drawn on the faction's remaining arsenal.

Both in blockaded Gaza, where residents have been experiencing decades
of a worsening humanitarian crisis, and in surrounding Israeli towns,
schools and businesses remained shut.

"We can't sleep at night because we worry about bombardment," said
Mohammad Abu el-Subbah, 24, outside a bakery in Gaza City. "People have
no clue what will happen next, whether there will be a truce or the war
will continue."

At least 80 people were wounded in the air strikes that destroyed five buildings and damaged more than 300 apartments, said Salama Marouf,
chairman of the media office for Hamas, the group that rules the densely populated coastal territory.

Israel's military said over 100 rockets - many of them improvised - had
fallen short, killing four Palestinians, including a 10-year-old girl.
Islamic Jihad denied that.

"Once again Israel tries to escape its responsibility for the killing of civilians through fabrications and lies," faction spokesman Dawoud
Shehab said.

Israel has kept crossings for the movement of people and goods closed
since Tuesday. Israeli authorities estimated that between 30% and 60% of communities around Gaza have evacuated as a precaution. On Wednesday,
sirens sounded as far as the commercial capital Tel Aviv, 60 km (37
miles) north of Gaza.

As the firing continued in Gaza, the military said it had arrested 25
people in the occupied West Bank associated with Islamic Jihad. In the
West Bank town of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli
forces shot dead a 66-year-old man. The military said troops returned
fire after one of them was shot and wounded by gunmen.

Israel captured Gaza and the West Bank, areas Palestinians want for an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in a 1967 war.
Israeli forces and settlers withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Statehood talks
have been frozen since 2014.

Reporting by Ali Sawafta, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Henriette Chacar;
Editing by Frank Jack Daniel
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


Nidal Al-Mughrabi
Thomson Reuters

A senior correspondent with nearly 25 years’ experience covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict including several wars and the signing of
the first historic peace accord between the two sides.

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