Israel fired missiles at Gaza Strip targets on Thursday in retaliation for Hamas attacks, an escalation after Israeli military troops killed 11 Palestinians during daytime raids in the occupied West Bank.
Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) acknowledged that it is conducting attacks in Gaza. According to the IDF, it attacked a weapons manufacturing facility and a military base belonging to Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza.
Hours before the attacks, Israel's air defences reported that six rockets were fired from Gaza into Israeli territory, with five being intercepted and one landing in an open area.
People in the Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon awoke to the sound of sirens triggered by a missile fired from the Gaza Strip due to the intensive bombardment that began early on Thursday morning.
The Israeli military claimed to have targeted a Hamas military installation adjacent to a mosque, a medical clinic, a hotel, a police station, and a school, calling it an example of the group's exploitation of the civilian population by storing weapons near civilian areas.
There were no reports of injuries in Israel or Gaza immediately following the clashes.
The escalation occurred after Israeli forces conducted a rare daytime raid on the West Bank city of Nablus, killing 11 and injuring 102, according to the Ramallah News & Information Agency (WAFA) and the Palestinian health ministry.
The Israeli operation aimed to target members of the Palestinian armed group. The raid lasted four hours and caused extensive damage to a centuries-old marketplace in Nablus, a city renowned as a Hamas stronghold.
The operation targeted individuals "planning attacks shortly," and three extremists were "neutralized," according to a joint statement from the Army and Israel Security Agency.
It was one of the worst episodes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in a year, increasing the prospect of additional violence. Following the operations, Israeli forces were on high alert, as any violence in the West Bank frequently elicits an immediate response from terrorists in Gaza.
Islamic Jihad, a militant organization based in Gaza, criticized the Israeli military's attack in Nablus on Wednesday, calling it a "major crime" to which "resistance must respond."
Spokesman Abu Obeida issued a warning, stating that "the resistance in Gaza is observing the enemy's escalating crimes against our people in the occupied West Bank" and that their "patience is wearing thin."
According to health officials, among the deceased in Nablus were three older men aged 72, 66, and 61, and a 16-year-old kid. Approximately 82 of the wounded were struck by live bullets.
In an emotional incident, a medic pronounced a patient died before realizing that the patient was his father.
A colleague who assisted him in removing the bullet from a 61-year-old man's heart stated that after removing it and observing the man's face, they realized he was his father. He noted that the moment would eternally haunt him.
On Thursday, the Palestinian territories conducted a countrywide strike in response to the attack, and remains were carried through crowds for funerals. The streets were filled with thousands of protesters chanting to support Hamas.
In the Old City of Nablus images, bullet-riddled businesses, damaged parked automobiles, and blood-stained cement ruins were visible. A large residence was reduced to rubble, and its furnishings were strewn across piles of wreckage.
The raid's death toll exceeded that of an Israeli attack last month in the northern city of Jenin, where 10 Palestinians were murdered. A Palestinian shot and killed seven individuals outside an east Jerusalem synagogue a day after the raid.
It occurred less than two months after the new hard-line government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the far-right prime minister of Israel, assumed office. He committed to taking a hard stance against Palestinians and increasing settlement construction on land Palestinians desire for their future state.
According to a calculation by The Associated Press, approximately sixty Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2018.
