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JERUSALEM – Israel on Saturday accused Iran of having sponsored attacks from the militant Palestinian group that took responsibility for a heavy barrage of rocket fire from Gaza during the night.
Israel responded to attacks on its southern territory, claimed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, with retaliatory air strikes against militant targets in Gaza. No deaths have been reported from either side.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli army spokesman, said that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force had directly communicated with Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-funded, heavily funded extremist group in Gaza. ordered and orchestrated the rocket fire.
"We do not take this lightly," said Colonel Conricus, adding that Israel had sent messages to third parties warning that any Israeli response would not necessarily be "confined to a geographical area", which means that it could extend beyond Gaza.
While the focus was on Iran, Colonel Conricus also accused neighboring Syria of having played an unspecified role in firing rockets, suggesting that the orders could have come from forces Iranians deployed in the region.
An Islamic Jihad spokesman, Daoud Shehab, denied that the group acted on orders from the Quds Force of Iran or any other outside force. He added that the group had avenged the killing of four Palestinians by Israeli forces on Friday during a weekly protest along the Gaza Barrier.
"What we did was a duty to defend the blood shed by the army at Gaza's borders," Shehab said.
Islamic Jihad generally works in coordination with Hamas, the largest Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. But Islamic Jihad sometimes asserts itself and competes with Hamas.
In an apparent attempt to pull out before pulling Gaza and Israel into a wider escalation, however, Islamic Jihad said Saturday that it was halting rocket fire and that with the launch of the war, there was no need for it. With the help of Egypt, an agreement had been reached to restore calm.
Israel has waged three wars against militant groups in Gaza over the last decade, the last in 2014.
Israeli and Palestinian analysts have speculated on possible Iranian motivations to order the launch of nearly 40 short-range rockets in four dams from Friday nightfall to about 10 am on Saturday.
Several said that it was most likely related to Iran's desire to disrupt the wider efforts of Egypt and the United Nations to stabilize the ceasefire that ended the war between Gaza and Gaza. Israel in 2014, and possibly to extend the terms of the truce.
Some analysts view the ceasefire talks as part of a more ambitious US plan for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that could be introduced soon by President Trump.
"Even if the Iranians want to scramble everything, they have no chance to do it now," said Talal Okal, a Palestinian writer and political analyst living in Gaza City, adding that both sides were heading for a stable truce.
While Israel wants peace, Hamas wants a loosening of the Gaza blockade that Israel is imposing, with the help of Egypt, for security reasons. Such a relaxation would relieve a little the two million inhabitants of the impoverished coastal enclave.
In a slight sign of progress last week, Israel has resumed the transfer of Qatar-financed fuel deliveries to Gaza to address a chronic shortage of electricity in the region. Fuel transfers were suspended in mid-October due to past violence along the border.
"Islamic Jihad knows it can not change the current," Okal said by phone from Gaza City. "But at this point, he is motivated to portray himself as an independent faction and not subject to Hamas rulings."
Ron Ben-Yishai, a military affairs commentator for Ynet, a Hebrew news site, wrote on Saturday that Iran most likely wanted to spoil any major Israeli-Palestinian deal and put pressure on the Americans to that they are not proceeding ahead with the next wave of negotiations. sanctions against Tehran's oil exports.
"Quite simply," Mr. Ben-Yishai wrote: "The Iranians are trying to put pressure on the Americans by sabotaging their interests vis-à-vis Israel."
The rocket fire began shortly after Israeli forces killed four Palestinians and wounded many injured during Friday's border demonstration. The Israeli army said rioters threw grenades, incendiary bombs and stones, and in two cases Palestinians briefly crossed the barrier into Israeli territory.
No Israeli soldier was injured. On Saturday, a fifth Palestinian died from wounds sustained the previous day.
The Israeli Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted about 17 rockets that landed at Israeli civilian communities – mainly the border town of Sderot – according to the military. Others have fallen on an open area.
The Israeli army first responded by air strikes against 87 Hamas targets, which Israel ultimately holds responsible for all the violence emanating from Gaza, and then eight targets belonging to Islamic Jihad.
Friday's rocket attacks also took place shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel and revealed that he had gone to meet Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman, influential nation-state of the Persian Gulf who long served as regional intermediary and with whom Israel did not formal diplomatic relations.
Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, Oman's foreign minister, presented on Saturday an overview of the role that the sultanate is playing in efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Speaking at the Manama Dialogue organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the Bahrain capital, Manama, he described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a vestige of the past, including the Middle East. and the region needed to go further to ensure their safety and development.
Oman felt that the time was right to start making "modest efforts" to bring the parties together.
"We are not mediators on this issue, but we are bringing facilitation and ideas that could bring something new," he said, adding that the real work of negotiating an agreement should come the United States.
