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GAZA CITY, May 13 (AP) — Israeli and Palestinian militants opened fire for a fifth day in a row Saturday, as Islamic Jihad fired dozens of rockets as Israeli forces stormed targets inside the Gaza Strip.
There were no immediate reports of Gaza or Israeli casualties on Saturday. But in a reminder of the flammable situation in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces attacked the Balata refugee camp near the northern city of Nablus, sparking a firefight that left two Palestinians dead.
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The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the two as Said Mesha, 32, and Adnan Araj, 19.
At least three other Palestinians were wounded in the raid, the latest in Israel’s nearly daily arrests of suspected militants in the territory.
Meanwhile, hopes for an imminent ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group came as the Israeli military bombed the apartment of Islamic Jihad commander Mohammad Abu Atta on Saturday, among other targets including rocket launchers is fading.
Islamic jihadist militants fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel, instructing tens of thousands of Israelis to stay near safe rooms and bomb shelters.
Hundreds of residents near the border were evacuated to hotels further north. Two shepherds in their 40s were seriously wounded and another slightly injured when shrapnel hit Shokeda, a farming community in the south, Israeli medics said.
Islamic Jihad has promised further attacks. “As assassinations and bombings of apartments and safe houses continue, the Palestinian resistance will resume rocket fire…to emphasize the continuation of the confrontation,” the group said.
Israeli officials told the media that Egypt-led efforts to broker a ceasefire are still ongoing, but Israel has ruled out the conditions put forward by Islamic Jihad in the talks.
Israel has said only that quiet will be met with quiet, and Islamic Jihad has reportedly been urging Israel to agree to a halt to targeted assassinations, among other demands. Israeli officials told local media that if rocket launches from Gaza continue, “the attacks (on Gaza) will continue and intensify.”
Hostilities erupted on Tuesday when Israel targeted and killed three senior Islamic Jihad commanders it said were responsible for firing rockets into the country last week. At least 10 civilians were killed in the initial attack, including women, children and unrelated neighbors, which drew condemnation from the region.
Israel has launched more airstrikes over the past few days, killing other senior Islamic Jihad commanders and destroying their command centers and rocket launch sites. On Friday, Israel killed Iyad al-Hassani, an Islamic Jihad commander who succeeded a leader of an Islamic Jihad operation who was killed in an airstrike on Tuesday.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 33 Palestinians — six of them children — were killed and more than 147 were injured.
Palestinians ventured out Saturday to assess the damage caused by Israeli warplanes and salvage what they can. A man carefully removes documents from under the rubble. Another person removed a mattress.
Four houses in a densely populated neighborhood were reduced to ashes in the pre-dawn attack. The Israeli military said the targeted houses belonged to or were used by Islamic jihadist militants.
Residents denied the army’s claims and said they did not know why their homes were targeted.
“We don’t have a rocket launch pad at all. It’s a residential area,” Awni Obaid said next to the ruins of his three-storey house in the central town of Deir Barah.
The nearby house of his relative, Jehad Obaid, was also razed. He was standing a few hundred meters away when his apartment was bombed.
“I wanted to throw up because of the dust,” he said. “This is extraordinary hatred. They claim they don’t attack children, but what we see is madness and destruction.”
Islamic Jihad retaliated by firing a thousand rockets into southern and central Israel. On Friday, the group escalated its attacks and fired rockets at Jerusalem, sounding air raid sirens in Israeli settlements south of the disputed capital.
Most of the rockets missed or were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.
But on Thursday, a rocket pierced a missile defense system and sliced ​​through a house in the central city of Rehovot, killing an 80-year-old woman and wounding several others.
Hamas, the larger militant group that has controlled the Gaza Strip since it took power in 2007, has praised Islamic Jihad for the attacks but remains on the sidelines, limiting the scope of the conflict, according to Israeli military officials.
With the de facto government responsible for the dire conditions in the blockaded Gaza Strip, Hamas has recently tried to cover up its conflict with Israel.
Islamic Jihad, on the other hand, is a more ideological and unruly militant group obsessed with violence, leading the past few rounds of fighting Israel.
A deadly Israeli attack on the Balata refugee camp on Saturday shifted the focus of the conflict back to the long-simmering West Bank. Israeli forces surrounded a militant hideout, residents said, sharing footage of a massive explosion that billowed smoke from the crowded camp. Ejected shell casings littered the alley. Blood stained the streets.
The Israeli military said the target apartment housed militants planning to attack Israeli soldiers and create improvised explosive devices. It said the violent explosion erupted after Israeli security forces detonated explosives at the hideout.
The military said the two Palestinians were killed when Israeli troops opened fire on a group of gunmen who opened fire on them.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict has surged in the West Bank under the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.
According to an Associated Press tally, 111 Palestinians have died in the occupied territories since the start of the year, with at least half of them linked to militant groups — the highest death toll in nearly two decades.
During that time, 20 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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