Israeli Planes Bomb Gaza

Tel Aviv Militants fired rockets into southern Israel yesterday, and planes from Tel Aviv attacked targets in Gaza, as the conflict escalated after Israeli troops staged a daytime raid on the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, killing 11 Palestinians.

The bloodbath extends one of the deadliest periods in years in the West Bank The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed to have thrown bombs at targets in northern and central Gaza, including a weapons factory and a war training complex belonging to the Palestinian armed group Hamas.

Hours earlier, Israel reported, six rockets had been fired from Gaza, five of which were intercepted and one landed in an open area The shelling yesterday morning sent up a column of black smoke over northern Gaza City, while in the Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon the sound of sirens woke the residents before the launch of one of the half dozen rockets from the Gaza Strip.

The hostility escalated after a rare daytime raid by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday that killed 11 people and wounded 102, according to the Palestinian News and Information Agency, citing the Palestinian Health Ministry That country.

The Tel Aviv troop raid targeted Hamas members, according to the IDF and the Israel Security Agency, which said in a joint statement that the target was people "planning attacks in the immediate future" and that three militiamen had been “neutralized” It was a four-hour operation that left a wide trail of damage in a centuries-old market in Nablus, a city known as a Hamas stronghold.

It is one of the bloodiest incidents in nearly a year in the West Bank, raising the likelihood of more bloodshed Netanyahu's army went on high alert after the raids, as violence in the West Bank often triggers an immediate response from militants in Gaza.

The Gaza-based Islamic Jihad militant group condemned Wednesday's Israeli raid on Nablus, calling it a "serious crime" to which "the resistance must respond " Spokesman Abu Obeida issued a warning, noting that "the resistance in Gaza sees the crimes on the rise against our people in the occupied West Bank" and that "patience is running out.

" Among the dead in Nablus were elderly people aged 72, 66 and 61, as well as a 16-year-old boy, according to health officials Among the wounded, 82 were hit by ammunition.

In an emotional scene, a overwhelmed doctor pronounced a patient dead only to realize it was his father A colleague who helped remove a bullet from the 61-year-old's heart said they realized his identity by seeing his face after removing the bullet.

He expressed that this moment will haunt him all his life The palestinian territories observed a general strike yesterday, in protest against the incursion, and stretchers with corpses were paraded through the crowds.

Thousands of people thronged the streets, chanting slogans in support of Hamas Images of bullet-riddled shops were shown in the Old City of Nablus, damage to parked vehicles and blood stains on building ruins.

A large house was reduced to rubble, among which were scattered furniture The airstrikes come less than two months after the new hardline government of far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power.

He has vowed to crack down on the Palestinians and speed up the construction of settlements on land the Palestinians seek for their future state Some 60 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem this year.

At press time, the Israeli government was reported to have approved plans to build 7,157 new housing units in settlements in the reoccupied West Bank, a move deemed illegal by the international community, reported an Israeli settlement watchdog group, Peace Now, the Xinhua news agency noted © The Independent.