JERUSALEM – Militants in Gaza fired several rockets at Israel overnight and early Thursday and the Israeli Air Force said it retaliated by attacking two military sites in Gaza, the most intense fighting between the two sides since the end of the war. an 11-day war in May last year. year.
No deaths were reported on either side, but Israeli public broadcaster Kan said several Israelis had been treated for shock and injuries sustained while running for shelter. One of the rockets landed in southern Israel, one fell short in Gaza and four others were intercepted by an Israeli air defense system, the military said.
In response, the Israeli military said its fighter jets hit a militant outpost involved in making missiles and later hit a Palestinian air defense facility. Video posted by Palestinians on social media shows several interceptions of rockets in the skies over Gaza and several explosions on the ground.
The exchange followed a sharp increase in violence in Israel and the occupied territories in the past month, starting with the deadliest wave of Arab attacks in Israel in more than half a decade. The attacks killed 14 people and sparked an Israeli crackdown in the occupied West Bank that killed at least 15 Palestinians.
Tensions escalated further after clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian stone throwers in the grounds of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and a holy site for Jews and Muslims alike. Those clashes drew rare public criticism from Israel’s new Arab allies, Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.
Clashes at the mosque complex in Jerusalem flared up again on Thursday as police forced Palestinians from parts of the site to secure access for tourists and Jewish believers, including hardworking Jewish activists who hope one day to rebuild an ancient Jewish temple that once stood on the ground. site of the mosque compound. Israeli police fired rubber bullets and tear gas, Kan reported, and some Palestinians fired fireworks from a large mosque building at the site.
But both Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, have expressed in recent days that they both want to avoid another mini-war like last year’s.
On Wednesday, Israel blocked far-right Jews from marching through Muslim areas of Jerusalem’s Old City — something that could easily have sparked more violence — and banned a far-right Jewish lawmaker from using a makeshift office next to an Old City entrance used by tens of thousands. Palestinians is used to reach the Aqsa Mosque.
Israeli police said they had arrested three Jewish visitors to the site who had failed to follow police instructions.
A Hamas official, Fawzi Barhoum, said early Thursday that the group was trying to put pressure on Israel over the situation in Jerusalem, but “without starting a war.”
In Gaza, officials are still repairing infrastructure damaged in last May’s fighting. Militants are still replenishing their weapons stocks and defenses. And analysts say they believe Hamas is wary of taking any action that could prompt Israel to reduce the number of Israeli work permits granted to residents of Gaza, a major source of income for Palestinians.
Tensions could ease in the coming days, when Israel will adopt its standard practice of closing the Aqsa complex to Jews and tourists during the last 10 days of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
But the overnight exchange showed how quickly the situation can spiral out of control, especially as videos of police interventions at the mosque flood Arab social media, causing deep insult among Muslims, who are currently observing Ramadan. . Last year’s war in Gaza was caused in part by similar scenes.
For Israelis, the repeated police raids on the mosque complex are a responsible act of law enforcement on Israeli sovereign territory. The Israeli government says it has been forced to intervene in the mosque to stem the disturbances started by Palestinian rioters that have endangered both Muslims and Jews, and to ensure freedom of entry for all, including tourists .
“Israel is doing everything it can to ensure that all peoples, as always, can safely celebrate the holidays – Jews, Muslims and Christians,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said this week.
Israel captured the compound in 1967, along with the rest of East Jerusalem, and now considers it an integral part of its capital. But the United Nations Security Council has often considered it occupied territory.
For Palestinians, the presence of the Israeli police on the site is the undesirable result of the Israeli occupation, and confrontations with the police in the compound, regardless of who initiates them, are seen as a legitimate act of resistance against an occupying power.
They fear that the police’s recent facilitation of Jewish prayer at the site, contrary to decades of convention, is the latest attempt to weaken Muslims’ access to and surveillance of one of Islam’s most sacred sites.
The Israeli interventions have also provoked insults throughout the Arab world and criticism from the three Arab countries that signed diplomatic agreements with Israel in 2020.
Weeks after a historic diplomatic conference on Israeli soil involving ministers from those countries, reactions show how the Palestinian conflict continues to affect Israel’s relationship with the Arab world, even after decades of Israeli diplomatic isolation in the Middle East. fade away.
The clashes have also led to an Islamist party in Israel’s ruling coalition suspending its membership, sparking a government crisis that could lead to snap elections.
Reporting contributed by Raja Abdulrahim from Jerusalem, Iyad Abuheweila from Gaza City, and Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel.
