Israel launches airstrikes against Islamic Jihad in Gaza
Three months before the Nov. 1 elections, and following growing tensions on Gaza border, Prime Minister Yair Lapid decided to respond forcefully to Islamic Jihad threats.
The Israeli army carried out airstrikes Friday evening on targets in the Gaza Strip, announcing operation “Breaking Dawn” against the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad. Reports said head of the group’s northern command Taysir al-Jabari was killed in the aerial strikes. Two anti-missile cells were apparently also hit in the strikes. The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least seven people were killed. Israeli authorities did not confirm these reports.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation came after several days of tension on the Gaza border, over the arrest of in the West bank of a senior Islamic Jihad member.
In fact, at the start of the week, Israeli security forces appeared to have scored yet another victory over terrorism with the arrest of the Islamic Jihad’s West Bank commander Bassem Saadi. The Aug. 1 raid by Israeli commandos and Shin Bet agents in the Jenin refugee camp was complex, with Israeli forces coming under brutal fire that forced them to hole up with Saadi in his home until a rescue team arrived to extricate them unharmed.
Saadi’s arrest was intended to deal a severe blow to the terrorism that swept through Israel from late March to early May, much of it carried out by Palestinians from the Jenin area. In political terms, the successful raid appeared to signal yet another upbeat week in the fortunes of Yair Lapid, the caretaker neophyte prime minister struggling to position himself as a viable alternative to “Mr. Security,” former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the Nov. 1 elections.
