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Palestinian resistance hit back after two days of Israeli air strikes

PALESTINIAN resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip hit back at Israel today after the besieged coastal enclave suffered two days of continuous air strikes by Tel Aviv’s forces.

The resistance fired dozens of rockets into Israel in a first response to ongoing Israeli air attacks that have killed 19 Palestinians, including three senior fighters.  

The rocket fire set off air-raid sirens throughout southern Israel and as far away as the Tel Aviv area 50 miles away.

Israelis in the south had been bracing for an attack since their country’s military carried out its first air strikes early on Tuesday.

Israeli media reported at least 100 rockets being fired. Rescuers said two people had been hurt while running for shelter and local officials said an empty home in the southern town of Sderot had been struck.

Throughout the day, Israeli aircraft hit targets in Gaza for the second day in a row, killing at least three Palestinians.

Tuesday’s strikes killed three senior Islamic Jihad militants and at least 10 civilians, most of them women and children. 

The Israeli military said its attacks were focused on resistance group Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s infrastructure in the coastal enclave.

Today, another air strike killed a Palestinian in northern Gaza and two in the southern city of Rafah. 

It is unclear whether two Palestinians killed in a separate air strike late on Tuesday were resistance fighters or civilians, but Israeli authorities claimed that the men had been preparing to fire anti-tank missiles.

Earlier today, the Israeli military said that it had killed two Palestinians who, it claimed, had opened fire at troops in the Palestinian town of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank during an army raid. 

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the dead men as Ahmed Assaf, 19, and Rani Qatanat, 24. Islamic Jihad later said that the two men were members.

“Our actions are meant to prevent further escalation,” said Rear Admiral Danny Hagari, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman. 

Meanwhile, Israel police said they would allow the annual flag-waving march marking Jerusalem Day to follow its traditional route through a main Palestinian thoroughfare in the Old City on Thursday next week. 

Thousands of Israeli nationalists take part each year, with some chanting racist slogans, as they march to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, in the Jewish Quarter. 

Last year’s march was marked by violence and in 2021, the march helped trigger a rocket attack on Jerusalem and an 11-day war with the Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip.

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