For three days, Israel bombarded the densely impoverished coastal enclave of Gaza, targeting Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leaders, civilians and their property in the worst outbreak since May 2021.

Israel’s ‘surgical’ airstrikes on Sunday evening have killed at least 43 Palestinians, including Taysir al-Jabari and Khalid Mansour, senior PIJ military figures in northern and southern Gaza, including 15 children and four women since Friday . At least 300, more than half of them women and children, were injured and at least 31 families were left homeless. An Israeli civilian and two soldiers were lightly injured by shrapnel.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its aerial bombardment was a preemptive operation to prevent planned rocket attacks by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad against Israel. He warned that his operation could last up to a week.

The continuing outbreaks of violence – Israel has launched at least eight deadly assaults on the besieged enclave since 2005, when it “withdrew” from Gaza – stem inexorably from Israel’s 15-year siege of Gaza which has was helped by the butcher of Cairo. , Egyptian General Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The blockade, an act of collective punishment prohibited by international law, has turned the enclave into an open-air prison for its two million inhabitants. Most of them lack even the basics of life, namely drinking water, sanitation and electricity, while more than half of the population is unemployed and the vast majority live in poverty. appalling.

While waging war on Gaza, the interim government of Yair Lapid, which leads an eight-party coalition comprising one of Israel’s Arab parties and several Jewish parties ostensibly committed to a Palestinian state alongside Israel has given free rein to the extreme right to incite violence against Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Under the protection of armed Israeli security forces, 1,000 religious bigots, far-right nationalists and settlers stormed. They waved Israeli flags, prayed and chanted anti-Muslim and anti-Arab slogans, breaking long-standing agreements with Jordan, the site’s official custodian, that non-Muslims are not allowed to pray at the site. pregnant or displaying Israeli symbols. Israeli police allowed settlers and far-right activists to enter the site almost daily.

Authorities allowed this latest provocation to go ahead as Israel’s military assault on Gaza entered its third day, fearing it could spark Palestinian protests and clashes. In May 2021, similar provocations at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound coinciding with Ramadan led to Israel’s 11-day assault on Gaza that killed 256 Palestinians and widespread rioting in mixed towns across Gaza. Israel of Haifa, Acre, Lod and Ramla.

The latest conflict began on Monday with Israeli special forces storming the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. They fired live and rubber-coated ammunition and tear gas at Palestinians and arrested Islamic Jihad leader Bassam al-Saadi and his son-in-law, Ashraf al-Jada, at his home in Jenin. Photos of al-Saadi dragged on the ground accompanied by an attack dog sparked a storm of protest, amid fears for his life, from PIJ supporters. Islamic Jihad vowed revenge.

The PIJ became the main force behind the armed resistance in Jenin and Nablus against both Israel and its subcontractor, the Palestinian Authority (PA) of President Mahmoud Abbas. During the raid, Israeli forces also shot and killed Derar Riyad al-Kafrini, a 17-year-old Palestinian boy, and injured Saadi’s wife and at least one other person.

Israel claimed that the PIJ planned to launch attacks from Gaza against Israel and made full-scale preparations for a large-scale operation against Islamic Jihad. He ordered the confinement of towns and villages in southern Israel, the closing of roads and the dispatch of reinforcements to the area, and called up 10 reserve battalions of border guards in case riots broke out in the towns in Palestinian majority in Israel. It closed the Erez and Kerem Shalom border crossings into Gaza, preventing essential goods, including food and fuel, from entering the besieged enclave and medical patients and the 14,000 Palestinians in Gaza with work permit in Israel to leave. Shortly after, Gaza’s only power station announced it would close, citing a lack of fuel.

On Friday, Israel began pounding Gaza with what it said were targeted strikes to “eliminate” Islamic Jihad leaders and militants. The United States and major European powers backed this latest war crime with flavors of Israel’s “right to defend itself” against attack, although no such attack took place.

Yair Lapid, Israel’s acting prime minister until Israel’s fifth election in four years on November 1, described the PIJ as “an Iranian proxy who wants to destroy the State of Israel.” His statement signals an Israeli offensive against Iran’s allies in the region.

The PIJ and Hamas, an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood that govern Gaza, are listed as “terrorist organizations” by US and European powers. Backed by Iran, the PIJ also has supporters in Lebanon and Syria. Its leader Ziad al-Nakhalah was in Tehran for talks with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Friday, the day Israel launched its bombardment of Gaza.

Al-Nakhalah promised that the group would launch revenge attacks, including targeting Tel Aviv and other cities. But Islamic Jihad rockets, launched only after Israel’s attack, had little impact. Most of its 400 rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system or fell on empty ground. A house was damaged.

Major General Hossein Salami, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, said on Saturday that the Palestinians were “not alone” in their fight against Israel, saying: “We are with you on this path until the end. end, and let Palestine and the Palestinians know that they are not alone. He added that Israel “will pay another heavy price for the recent crime.”

Hamas, despite its fierce opposition to its rival, said it supported Islamic Jihad’s response to the Israeli bombings. However, he took no action against Israel, as he tried to prevent the conflict from erupting into full-scale war. He also stood aside during Israel’s two-day assault on Gaza in November 2019 that assassinated PIJ southern military leader Bahaa Abu el-Atta and his wife.

The Israeli government under Naftali Bennett and now under Lapid, has, unlike that of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sought to strengthen Hamas at the expense of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority as a means of dividing the Palestinians. Israel has lifted some of the restrictions imposed on Gaza, increasing its electricity supply and its ability to carry out reconstruction work. It has granted work permits to 20,000 Gazans that allow them to enter Israel daily to work for wages that are about 10 times the rate paid in Gaza where the unemployment rate exceeds 50%.

Lapid’s government reportedly agreed to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Islamic Jihad set to take effect at 8 p.m. Sunday, with promises from Israel to ease Gaza’s fuel shortage. in exchange for a repression of the PIJ by Hamas. It remains to be seen whether it will take effect or if it will hold.

Lapid battles a hard-fought election against two rivals for the premiership. The first is Netanyahu, who, despite criminal charges of bribery, bribery and breach of trust in three separate cases, is currently predicted for the most votes, particularly if his far right, the religious allies of Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party, agree to a merger for electoral purposes as they did ahead of last year’s elections. The second is his defense minister and former army chief Benny Gantz. Lapid, who has never held a security post, is therefore keen to consolidate his credentials.

His efforts to terrorize Palestinians and aid the fascist far-right seek to deflect immense social tensions within Israeli society outward as elections – unusually – focus on rising living costs and growing poverty. One of the most unequal societies in the advanced world, Israel has the highest poverty rate of any country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The coalition government, in power for barely a year, has widened the already huge socio-economic gaps in Israeli society, offering tax breaks to the wealthy, raising the prices of basic household goods and promoting agricultural reforms that would devastate the farmers, while failing to curb soaring housing costs. As elsewhere, deteriorating conditions for most Israeli workers and their families have led to an increasing number of strikes and working class protests.