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Tension sank Sunday in the Gaza Strip, the day after the worst armed confrontation between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement since the 2014 war.
Tension has fallen by one notch Sunday in the Gaza Strip and nearby Israeli settlements, in the aftermath of the worst armed confrontation between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement since the 2014 war. On Saturday evening, Hamas, which heads the Palestinian enclave, announced a ceasefire. -le-fire had been concluded through Egyptian mediation. Since then, some exchanges of fire only came to disturb the precarious calm.
On Sunday, the Israeli army said it had deployed batteries from its rocket interception system in areas around the Gaza Strip and in central Israel around Tel Aviv. She added that "a limited number of reservists were recalled to reinforce the Air Defense Command" . It carried out dozens of airstrikes Saturday, killing two Palestinian teenagers aged 15 and 16, while 200 rockets and shells had been fired from the enclave into Israeli territory. The UN special envoy for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, visiting Sunday in the Gaza Strip, asked all actors to put an end to "cycle" of violence, specifying that the solution must be political.
Saturday's escalation took place in the aftermath of deadly clashes along the fence that separates Israel from the enclave under blockade, and after a confrontation in the night from Friday to Saturday, Hamas firing rockets and mortar shells into Israeli territory while Israel was conducting air raids. Thousands of Palestinians attended Sunday funerals for two teenagers killed the day before. A video widely broadcast on social networks shows the two boys dying after being hit by shrapnel from an Israeli missile on the roof of an empty building in the west of Gaza City.
"Center d ' training »
A group of teenagers comes to help them when a second strike lands near the building. The two boys were quickly evacuated, and soon after they were handed over to the paramedics, a third strike completely destroyed the building. The Israeli army claims that the five-storey building was used as "training center" by Hamas. The mother of one of the teenagers killed, Maysoun al-Namra, told AFP that her son and his friend had gone "on a walk" . "I heard the sound of a nearby bombardment, I called him but his cell was out of order and I knew something had happened" she said. "What did they and his friend do to deserve to be killed? ".
Saturday's Israeli strikes also left at least 25 Palestinians wounded, according to authorities in Gaza. Four Israelis have been wounded by firing a rocket at a house in Sderot, a city near the Gaza Strip and a regular target of Hamas gunfire, according to Israeli authorities.
Hamas claims to have fired in response to an Israeli airstrike Friday, which occurred after a soldier was wounded by a grenade along the fence that separates the Jewish state from the enclave. At the funeral of the two teenagers, Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, promised an intensification of the demonstrations until the blockade was lifted. "This blood will not be poured in vain" he promised.
"Right to return"
Since March 30, the border zone has been the scene of demonstrations against the strict Israeli blockade and for the "right to return" Palestinians expelled from their lands or who fled Israel's creation in 1948. At least 141 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and more than 4 000 gunshot wounded since that date. No Israeli was killed. In addition, more than 2,600 hectares of land have been burned in Israel by incendiary balloons and kites from Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel accuses Hamas of being responsible for this escalation, the most intense since the devastating war of 2014, which took place after more than three months of demonstrations and clashes along the barrier. The Israeli army inflicted on Hamas its "hardest blow" since 2014, for its part reacted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the opening of the cabinet. "It is said that Israel has accepted a cease-fire allowing the continuation of inflammatory acts of terror with balloons and kites, it is false, we will not accept any attack against us" He added:
Israel closed Kerem Shalom on July 9, the only crossing point for goods between Israel and Gaza, in response to the incendiary kites sent from the enclave. Israel and Hamas have waged three wars since 2008 and have observed a ceasefire that has been strained since the conflict in 2014. In late May, a previous escalation of violence between Gaza's armed groups and the Israeli army had revived the specter of a new conflict. Israeli raids had hit 65 Hamas military positions in the Palestinian enclave in retaliation for firing about 100 rockets and mortar shells at its territory, according to an army count.
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