Netanyahu Threatens Gaza Terror Leaders: If Quiet Not Restored, ‘You Are Next in Line’

 

 

A rocket is fired toward Israel, in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 24, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Ibraheem Abu Mustafa.

Gaza terrorists on Monday fired rockets toward Israel, which responded with air strikes, in the second day of an escalation that ebbed but did not come to an end despite Islamic Jihad announcing a halt to its attacks.

Islamic Jihad has fired 80 rockets toward Israeli communities along the Gaza border since Sunday, an Israeli military spokeswoman said, while Israel has attacked sites in Gaza and Syria that have killed three Islamic Jihad members.

The violence comes a week before an Israeli election in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking a fifth term in office after two inconclusive votes in the past year.

Iran-backed Islamic Jihad said earlier on Monday it had ended its “military response” to Israel. But it then reversed course and resumed firing rockets, claiming Israel had continued air strikes after the group’s apparent de-escalation.

“The enemy did not abide and bombed our positions and our fighters. Therefore, we announce that we have carried out a response in order to stress our position: bombardment for bombardment,” said Abu Hamza, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad’s armed wing.

The Israeli military said its jets had struck an Islamic Jihad training and weapons storage facility in southern Gaza, as well as other underground infrastructure.

“Yesterday we attacked in Syria and in Gaza. We are continuing to strike now with jets, tanks and helicopters,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Twitter on Monday evening.

“We will continue to strike until quiet is restored,” Netanyahu added. “I have a message for the heads of the terrorist organizations: If quiet is not restored — you are next in line.”

The latest fighting began around dawn on Sunday when Israeli troops killed an Islamic Jihad member who was trying to plant explosives near Israel‘s border fence with Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Video footage shot by a Gazan photographer and widely shared on social media showed what appeared to be the lifeless body of the Islamic Jihad operative dangling from an Israeli military bulldozer as it removed the corpse.

The images created an uproar in Gaza, prompting calls for retaliation. Islamic Jihad later fired a barrage of rockets into Israel.

Just before midnight on Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck what the military called “a hub of Islamic Jihad’s activity in Syria” in the Adeliyah region outside the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Islamic Jihad continued to fire rockets into southern Israeli communities into Monday, as funerals for the group’s two dead fighters were held in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.

The Gaza rocket fire sent residents of southern Israel running to shelters, and the Israeli military said it had closed down roads in the area as a precaution. No casualties were reported.

Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations urged both sides to show restraint.

There was no sign that Hamas had been drawn into the rocket firing.

An uneasy truce between Israel and Hamas has helped stave off the sort of large-scale fighting that led to Israel-Gaza wars in 2008 and 2014.

In New York, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said on Monday, “The dozens of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel indicate a clear intention by terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip to escalate the situation. Israel is acting with determination and resolve to end the threat to its citizens. We will not hesitate to continue our defensive actions. The international community should condemn the rocket fire from Gaza and act against terrorist organizations.”