The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians have escalated after the Israeli police intervened a prayer congregation with plastic bullets and stun grenades by raiding the Masjid al-Aqsa during the night prayer on May 7. The reason is said to be the attempts to evict Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah area.
Palestinians groups in the Gaza Strip have been firing rockets at Israel without stopping for 10 hours, the Israeli army said. “From 6 pm, terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip have been launching rockets against the civilian population in Israel. Without stopping. Now it is 04:00. This is already 10 hours of rocket attacks,” the Israeli army said in a statement on Twitter.
Sword of Jerusalem operation
Resistance groups in Gaza launch ‘Sword of Jerusalem’ operation against Israel with simultaneous attacks. Earlier, spokesman Abu Obaydah from Hamas’s military wing Al-Qassam Brigade said that Israel has time until 18.00 to withdraw soldiers from the areas of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Temple Mount or the Haram esh-Sharif) and Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. After that, about 150 missiles were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel, dozens of them were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. The Al-Qassam Brigade later gave Israel two more hours to withdraw its soldiers from the Al-Aqsa mosque area, threatening to retaliate.
The Al-Qassam Brigade has claimed responsibility for the missile attacks on Israel. They said it was a response to the “aggression against the holy city” of Jerusalem and to the “persecution of our people in Sheikh Jarrah and the Al-Aqsa mosque.”
Israeli retaliation
In response, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have launched a “wave of strikes” on the Gaza Strip. Israeli warplanes have conducted new air strikes in the blockaded Gaza Strip early Tuesday. The warplanes struck the port area in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. They also hit positions of Palestinian resistance groups in the western Gaza Strip. A position of a Palestinian resistance group in northern Gaza was also struck. The resistance groups responded with rocket fire.
Mariam Afifi released
A Palestinian artist Mariam Afifi and a member of the Palestinian Youth Orchestra, was dragged from her headscarf during the Masjid al-Aqsa clashes has been released by the Israeli authorities. “I believe I’m strong because I know I’m on the right side,” said Mariam Afifi after the release. Images of Afifi , who was smiling while being arrested during the protests, were shared widely on social media and became one of the symbols of resistance.
Explaining her own assessment on why Israel wanted the Palestinians to leave the area, she said “You cannot go from the north to the south of Jerusalem and from the east to the west without going through Sheikh Cerrah. They want to make this place a center belonging to Israel. The first is. Second. “There is a bigger Israeli dream. This is to make Jerusalem an Israeli road from east to west, from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean. In the middle of these two places is Sheikh Jarrah,” she said on Instagram live.
Diplomatic reactions
Global leaders have slammed rocket firings as ‘unacceptable escalation.’ Organizers have canceled a controversial Jerusalem Day parade. Egypt and Qatar are reportedly working to reduce tensions between the sides.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to harshly respond to the rocket attacks coming from the Gaza Strip. “We are in a fight on several fronts: Jerusalem, Gaza and elsewhere in the country. This evening, on Jerusalem Day, the terrorist organizations in Gaza have crossed a red line and attacked us with missiles in the outskirts of Jerusalem,” he said.
According to the Red Crescent, 80 people were injured in clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police on Sunday night, and about 300 were injured in recent days.