Over the course of an hour over 100 Palestinian rockets were fired from Gaza into Israeli territory. Most fell within a radius of about 40 kilometers from the Strip while some also reached the center of the country. This was reported by Israeli public television Kan according to which material damage is limited (thanks to the intervention of the Iron Dome air defense system) and so far no casualties have been reported.
Two militiamen were killed in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, in an Israeli bombing. This was reported by the local health ministry. According to journalistic sources, they are militiamen from the Abu Ali Mustafa brigades, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The health ministry specified that yesterday the total death toll of Palestinians in Gaza in the fighting was 15 men, women and children. The wounded are now over 40.
Gaza’s health ministry has provided an updated Palestinian death toll from two days of Israeli attacks. 20 died, including 4 women and 5 minors. The wounded, according to the ministry, are 42. A climate of emergency is felt in hospitals in Gaza, according to local sources.
Israel is “ready to expand the current operation and inflict heavy blows on Gaza now and in the future”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said so speaking with mayors of southern Israeli municipalities that are under rocket attack from the Strip.
Over 40 Islamic Jihad rocket and mortar launch sites have been targeted in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza Strip territory. The army made it known, adding that it is continuing to operate in Gaza.
The Egyptian announcement of the truce
“Egyptian sources informed: Egyptian efforts lead to an immediate ceasefire between the Palestinian and Israeli sides”: writes the Egyptian site “Al Qahera News”. The website of the new official Egyptian broadcaster, created to counter geopolitical rival Qatar’s Al Jazeera and compete with other pan-Arab broadcasters, had shortly before written of “intense efforts and Egyptian contacts for the ceasefire and the restoration of calm in Gaza”. “Egypt has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israelis and Palestinians, following the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which left 20 dead and dozens wounded,” al-Qaera News began.
“Egyptian efforts have managed to lead to an immediate ceasefire between the Palestinian and Israeli sides”: the site of the main Egyptian newspaper, the government al-Ahram, relaunches it, another state broadcaster in Cairo also announces it on Twitter, “Extra News”. Moreover, Egypt is a historic mediator between Hamas and Israel and has already contributed, through its secret services, to the ceasefires in several previous conflicts between Palestinian factions and the Jewish state.
Netanyahu: ‘The campaign is not over’
But Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in a televised speech with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in which he did not mention the ceasefire reported by the Egyptian media, said “the campaign in Gaza is not over yet”. And he then explained that with the Shield and Arrow operation launched yesterday by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, the principle was reaffirmed “that whoever strikes us then pays with their lives. We are creating a new balance and it is we who strike, we have the choice,” added the Israeli premier. Netanyahu then stressed that Israel “dealt Islamic Jihad the strongest blow in its history”. Gallant explained that there is hope that the operation will “conclude soon”.
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