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Strip — Israel unleashed a wave of airstrikes in Gaza on Friday that it said targeted the Islamic Jihad militant group amid days of heightened tensions following the arrest of a senior member of the group in the occupied West Bank earlier this week.
It was not immediately clear what Israel was targeting or if anyone had been killed and wounded, but the strikes risked igniting yet another war in the territory, which is ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas and is home to about 2 million Palestinians.
A blast could be heard in Gaza City, where smoke poured out of the seventh floor of a tall building on Friday afternoon.
The Israeli military declared a “special situation” on the home front and said it was targeting Islamic Jihad in an operation named “Breaking Dawn.”
Israel had closed roads around Gaza earlier this week and sent reinforcements to the border as it braced for a revenge attack after the arrest of the Islamic Jihad leader in the occupied West Bank on Monday. A teenage member of the group was killed in a gunbattle between the Israeli troops and Palestinian militants.
Israel and the Hamas fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes in the 15 years since the militant group seized power in the coastal strip from rival Palestinian forces. The most recent war was in May 2021, and tensions again soared earlier this year following a wave of attacks inside Israel, near-daily military operations in the West Bank and tensions at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.
