GAZA: Palestinian armed groups staged military exercises in Gaza on Tuesday, including firing rockets into the sea, to mark the anniversary of the start of the 2008 conflict with Israel.
The demonstrations were scheduled to last several hours and involve about 10 groups in the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian enclave, said a spokesman for the Al-Quds Brigade forces, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad.
The goal of the exercise, the first of its kind, is to “strengthen the skills of combatants” and demonstrate the “unity” of armed groups in Gaza, added the spokesman, whose face was almost entirely covered by a traditional headscarf.
Hamas, the Islamist group that has controlled Gaza since 2007, was also taking part. Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV showed rockets being fired from the strip on Tuesday into the Mediterranean Sea.
Israel’s army said a projectile device was launched from Gaza overnight Monday to Tuesday, but that it did not cross into Israeli territory.
Israel did not immediatly retaliate to that launch with airstrikes, as it typically does when rockets fired from Gaza enter Israel.
The drills also come days after Hamas accused Israel of launching strikes that damaged a children’s hospital.
Israel, which said it carried out the weekend airstrikes in response to rocket fire from Gaza, denied that its missiles hit the hospital.
In December 2008, Israel launched “Operation Cast Lead” to stop Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.
It ended with a cease-fire in January 2009, after 1,440 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.
Hamas and Israel fought two further conflicts, in 2012 and 2014.
A fragile truce has broadly held in recent months, despite rocket fire from Gaza which is generally followed by retaliatory Israeli air strikes.
Poverty rates in Gaza, which hovered around 50 percent before the coronavirus pandemic, are thought to have increased since Hamas imposed lockdown measures to limit transmission.
Gaza forces fire rockets to mark Israel conflict anniversary
https://arab.news/nhxzb
Gaza forces fire rockets to mark Israel conflict anniversary
- The demonstrations were scheduled to last several hours and involve about 10 groups in the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian enclave
- The goal of the exercise is to “strengthen the skills of combatants” and demonstrate the “unity” of armed groups in Gaza
Iran’s foreign ministry: ‘Time has come to defend the homeland’ after US-Israeli strikes
DUBAI: Iran’s Foreign Ministry responded to a joint US-Israel attack on Saturday by saying that the country “will not hesitate” in its response to the strikes.
In a statement posted on X, the ministry said: “The time has come to defend the homeland and confront the enemy’s military assault.”
Iran said it will “respond decisively” after Israel and the United States launched strikes on the country despite talks underway on Tehran’s nuclear program.
“The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will respond decisively to the aggressors,” a foreign ministry said in a statement, insisting Iran had done “everything necessary to prevent war.”
“Just as we were ready for negotiations, we are now more prepared than ever to defend the Iranian nation,” it said.
The US and Israel launched a major attack on targets across Iran on Saturday, and US President Donald Trump called on the Iranian people to “take over your government” — an extraordinary appeal that suggested the allies could be seeking to end of the country’s theocracy after decades of tensions.
The first strikes of the attack appeared to target the compound home to Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in downtown Tehran. It wasn’t immediately clear if he was there at the time. Smoke could be seen rising from the Iranian capital.
“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted Death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries,” Trump said in a video posted on social media that sought to justify the attacks.
He urged Iranians to take cover during the strikes, but then: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.”
