Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
08-08-2022
Bureau Report + Agencies
GAZA CITY/ ISLAMABAD: The death toll from violence in Gaza has risen to 30, including six children, the health ministry in the Palestinian enclave said Sunday, correcting a previous statement, as Israel continues to pond Gaza with air strikes.
Meanwhile, the ministry had put the number of people killed at 32, but a further ministry statement brought the number down to 29, including six children and four women.
The health ministry also said that 253 people in Gaza had been wounded since the hostilities with Israel broke out on Friday.
The violence is the worst in Gaza since a war last year that devastated the impoverished territory home to some 2.3 million Palestinians.
Israel has said it was necessary to launch a “preemptive” operation against Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, claiming the group had been planning an “imminent attack” following days of tensions along the border with Gaza.
The Palestinian group is aligned with Hamas but often acts independently.
Israel carried out its first air strikes on the Gaza Strip in months early Tuesday in response to a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave as tensions soar after a weekend of violence around a Jerusalem holy site.
Earlier, warning sirens sounded in southern Israel Monday night after the rocket was fired from the enclave controlled by the Hamas, the first such incident since early January.
The projectile crashed into the sea off Tel Aviv.
“One rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory. The rocket was intercepted by the Iron Dome Air Defense System,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Hours later the Israeli air force said it had hit a Hamas weapons manufacturing site in retaliation.
Hamas claimed to have used its “anti-aircraft defence” to counter the air raids, which caused no casualties, according to witnesses and security sources in Gaza.
No faction in the crowded enclave of 2.3 million inhabitants immediately claimed responsibility for the rocket but it comes after a series of attacks in Israel and a weekend of tensions at a holy site in Jerusalem.
Israel holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire from Israel, and usually carries out air strikes in response.
On the other hand, Pakistan on Saturday condemned Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza as fresh violence continued a second day, ending more than a year of relative calm along the border.
Israel on Friday said it had launched a special operation against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, killing one of its senior commanders in a surprise daytime air strike on a high-rise building in Gaza City.
Health authorities in the enclave controlled by Hamas said 10 people had been killed by Israel’s bombardment, including a five-year-old girl, with 79 others injured. Israel’s army estimated that its operation had killed 15.
