Israeli Offensive in the Gaza Strip | A day after …

A day after Israel approved the "Basic Law of the Nation-State" which guarantees the Jewish identity of the country, its armed forces yesterday launched a mbadive offensive on the Strip. Gaza, which has killed at least four Palestinians. The attack took place after several Israeli soldiers were shot dead at the border, causing the death of one of them.

The Israeli army confirmed "a large-scale attack by Israeli warplanes against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip." An Israeli army spokesman said the attacks were carried out in retaliation for Israeli gunfire. "Up to now, the army has attacked 15 military targets of the detachment located in the Zaitun district of northern Gaza, destroyed its headquarters and caused significant damage to its capabilities," he said. said a military note. The affected posts were the weapons and materiel warehouses, the training facilities, the observation posts, the command and control rooms, the detachment operation room and the police station. his commander's office, as well as other infrastructure. Residents in the area claimed that several explosions had been heard in Gaza City. According to the armed wing of the Palestinian Hamas organization, which governs Gaza, three of the dead were members of the group. Palestinian militias launched three projectiles on Israel, two of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile system.

The UN envoy to the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, who recently attempted in Egypt to defuse the situation in the region, urged the parties involved to calm down. "Everyone in #Gaza must move away from the abyss, not next week, not tomorrow, NOW!" Wrote Mladenov on Twitter. Those who "want to provoke Palestinians and Israelis into a new war must not succeed," he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed yesterday at an emergency meeting in Tel Aviv with military leaders. to take.

In 2014, Israel and Hamas clashed for 50 days with a total of 2,250 Palestinians killed. On the Israeli side, the dead were 74.

According to local media, Palestinian groups yesterday launched missiles against Israeli territory. In addition, demonstrations were again reported along the border between Israel and Gaza. According to witnesses, Palestinians burned tires, tried to damage the border fence and threw kites and incendiary balloons into Israeli territory.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 147 Palestinians were killed in mid-March. They were injured. Palestinians call for an end to the blockade imposed on Gaza more than a decade ago and the right of return to Israeli territory for those displaced in 1948. The United States yesterday exclusively accused the Hamas Palestinian Islamist movement of the region, after the Israeli air force bombed the Gaza Strip. "Israel has the right to defend itself," said a spokesman for the National Security Council.

On the other hand, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in counterpoint with the White House, emphasized yesterday that the "protection of minorities" is important. to be questioned about his position regarding the Israeli law of Jewish identity approved the day before yesterday. At her summer press conference, the foreign minister declared herself convinced of the right to "exist" of a Jewish democratic government with a Palestinian state that is not unfortunately not yet formed and for which little progress has been made lately ".

In turn, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday considered that the approval of the law marks a milestone in the history of his country.

"Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, which respects the individual rights of all its citizens.It is our state, the Jewish state," Netanyahu said. "Today we have made it a law: it is our nation, our language and our flag.It is a decisive moment in the history of Zionism and the State. of Israel. "

However, critics of the law point out that it is discriminatory towards minorities, such as Israeli Arabs (Palestinians who remained within the country's borders). d & # 39; Israel). Israel after the creation of the state, in 1948) and this provokes them unnecessarily with an emphasis on the preferential treatment of Jews by the state. "No one believes the government is interested in the nationality or state of Israel," said Shelly Yajimovich, MP for the Israeli Labor Party of the Zionist opposition Union, adding that this law encourages a "degraded form of nationalism that hates the other". ", According to the newspaper Yediot Aharonot.