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An Islamic Jihad commander was killed in a recent Israeli attack as foreign brokers pushed for a ceasefire.
Palestinian medical officials said at least two Palestinians were killed and several wounded in four consecutive days of Israeli shelling of the besieged Gaza Strip.
One of those killed in Friday’s apartment raid was a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Organization (PIJ), local media reported. The total number of Palestinians killed in this week’s shelling has taken at least 33, including several children, and more than 110 were injured.
Hundreds of rockets were also fired from the Strip into Israel, killing a 70-year-old man in central Israel.
Al Jazeera’s Yumna El-Sayed, reporting from Gaza, said people were out to attend Friday prayers, but the attack by Israeli forces had unsettled worshipers.
“There is always fear here,” she says. “Even though everyone is expected to stay home after Friday’s services, residential homes have been targeted in recent days. The amount of fear here is still very high.”
While the fighting lulled, the Palestinians surveyed the wreckage left by the Israeli attack.
“The dream we built for our children and sons is over,” said Belal Bashir, a Palestinian living in Delibala, central Gaza. A late-night airstrike on Thursday left his family home in a pile of rubble. .
“Our situation is similar to that of Palestinians whose homes were targeted and the dreams they had built up over the years were dashed,” he said.
He said he and his family would have been killed in the explosion had he not heard the screams and run outside.
“We were shocked that our home was targeted,” Bashir said as he pulled the children’s dolls and blankets out of the crater.
Al Jazeera’s Willem Marx, reporting from Ashkelon, Israel, said sirens were blaring across the region, warning residents of the approaching fire.
“Of the more than 800 rockets fired this week, perhaps about 20 could have been fired from Gaza,” Marx said on Friday. “Israeli forces have confirmed to us that they are moving people out of these areas to move them to areas where they are less likely to be hit by this heavy rocket attack.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with military and intelligence officials early Friday morning. “It will show how the Israeli army will proceed in the next few hours,” Marx said.
The rocket hit an empty lot in the South Jerusalem settlement of Bat Ain, said Josh Hasten, a spokesman for the region. The video showed the Israeli man jumping out of his car and crouching under a highway railing as sirens blared.
The Gaza-based umbrella organization for the Palestinian factions, known as the “Joint Operations Room,” said it had fired rockets “in response to assassinations and continued attacks on the Palestinian people.”
ceasefire negotiations
This week’s cross-border exchanges pitted the Islamic Jihad, the second-largest militant group after Hamas, the ruler of Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations are working to broker a ceasefire.
Hamas officials told local media on Friday that Egypt was stepping up diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting through “intensive contacts” with both Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Islamic Jihad officials have sent mixed signals about the talks.
Senior official Ihasan Ataya complained on Friday that mediators “could not provide us with any guarantees.” Ataya said the problem with Islamic Jihad is that it calls for Israel to end its policy of targeted killings.
This week’s fighting comes as Israel launched a simultaneous airstrike on Tuesday, killing three Islamic Jihad commanders and at least 10 civilians sleeping in their homes, including their wives, children and some of their neighbors. started with
Israel said it was in retaliation for Islamic Jihad firing rockets last week after Kader Adnan, a member of the occupied West Bank, died in Israeli custody in a hunger strike.
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