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The Israeli military has launched airstrikes in the Gaza Strip after a day of rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon and a second Israeli police raid on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque stoked fears of further escalation during overlapping religious holidays.
Two explosions were heard in Gaza late on Thursday. It was not immediately clear what had been targeted.
The airstrikes came as Israel’s Security Cabinet was meeting to discuss a response to what the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) described as the biggest rocket salvo since the 2006 war into northern Israel. Most of the 34 projectiles were intercepted, but there were two minor injuries and a fire.
Earlier, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pledged an “aggressive response” to the rocket fire, which the Israeli army blamed on Palestinian groups.
The marked uptick in violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the beginning of the Jewish Passover holiday comes after a year of increasing bloodshed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also carried echoes of 2021, when clashes at al-Aqsa during Ramadan helped start an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas. Thursday’s events have led to fears of a wider conflagration around the region.
Hezbollah and its allies have faced extensive attacks by Israeli jets in Syrian territory over the last week, striking at what Israel believes to be sites to manufacture drones. At least two members of the organisation are believed to have been killed during night raids that levelled several hangars at Syrian airbases.
The militant group has vowed to strike back at its arch foe whenever its members are killed, but, like Hamas in the Gaza Strip, remains wary of an escalation. Though Palestinian groups operate in the south of Lebanon, none do so without the knowledge of Hezbollah, and a large scale rocket strike would almost certainly be coordinated.
The raid on Palestinians by Israeli police inside al-Aqsa mosque could have offered a pretext for a limited rocket strike, which served both the Palestinians and Hezbollah and gave the latter at least some deniability.
Early on Thursday, Palestinian militants in Gaza launched about nine rockets into Israel in the early hours, setting off air raid sirens across the south of the country but causing no casualties or damage. Most of the rockets exploded before impact, the Israeli army said, and none of Gaza’s militant groups claimed responsibility.
Two rockets were fired just before the second incident at the holiest Jerusalem site late on Wednesday and early on Thursday, in which police using stun grenades and rubber bullets entered the compound to remove worshippers. Six people were injured, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The latest flare-up followed a large Israeli police raid on al-Aqsa the day before, in which at least 12 people were injured and more than 350 arrested. That raid also triggered rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, which was countered with Israeli airstrikes on alleged military sites belonging to Hamas, the Islamist movement in control of the strip.
Where is al-Aqsa mosque and why is it significant to Muslims?
ShowAl-Aqsa mosque sits at the heart of Jerusalem's Old City, on a hill known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, and to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Muslims regard the site as the third holiest in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. Al-Aqsa is the name given to the whole compound and is home to two Muslim holy places: the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, which was built in the 8th century AD.
The compound overlooks the Western Wall, a sacred place of prayer for Jews, for whom the Temple Mount is their most sacred site. Jews believe biblical King Solomon built the first temple there 3,000 years ago. A second temple was razed by the Romans in AD70.
Israel captured the site in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it with the rest of East Jerusalem and adjoining parts of the West Bank in a move not recognised internationally.
Jordan, whose ruling Hashemite family has custodianship of the Muslim and Christian sites, appoints members of the Waqf institution, which oversees the site.
The compound has long been a flashpoint for deadly violence over matters of sovereignty and religion in Jerusalem.
Under the longstanding "status quo" arrangement governing the area, which Israel says it maintains, non-Muslims can visit but only Muslims are allowed to worship in the mosque compound.
Jewish visitors have increasingly prayed more or less openly at the site in defiance of the rules, and Israeli restrictions on Muslim worshippers' access to the site have led to protests and outbreaks of violence. Reuters
The first raid, in which disturbing footage of soldiers beating Palestinians with batons and te butts of rifles emerged, drew widespread condemnation in the Muslim world and concern from the White House over the possibility of escalation.
Both the UN and US called for calm on Thursday after the rocket fire, while the Lebanese government said it would coordinate with Unifil, the UN force on the Israeli-Lebanese border, to prevent an escalation.
Elsewhere on Thursday, clashes broke out overnight between protesters and police in the Arab-majority town of Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel and a Palestinian teenager was shot and lightly wounded by an Israeli civilian in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The Palestinian foreign ministry said the UN security council would hold a closed-door session on Thursday to discuss the violence since Wednesday’s raid on al-Aqsa, which Israeli authorities said was an attempt to prevent clashes by clearing groups barricaded inside with weapons, rocks and firecrackers planning to breach the peace.
The Jordanian organisation that manages the site, known as the Waqf, said along with witnesses that police entered the mosque before prayers were over.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said: “Israel’s raid into al-Aqsa mosque, its assault on worshippers, is a slap to recent US efforts which tried to create calm and stability during the month of Ramadan.”
The Temple Mount in occupied East Jerusalem, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif or as al-Aqsa, is holy to Jews and Muslims and is regularly the scene of violence. Security and diplomatic officials have warned that this year’s overlap of Ramadan and Passover has increased tensions.
Muslims often spend the night in the mosque compound during Ramadan, but the Waqf agreed this year that worshippers would not be allowed to stay in the house of prayer overnight for at least the first 20 days of the holiday.
Under a longstanding compromise implemented after the Israeli occupation began in 1967, Jews are allowed to visit but not pray at the site, and any perceived attempt to alter the arrangement acts as a lightning rod for violence. In recent years Jewish visitors have increasingly prayed more or less openly in the compound, sometimes under police protection.
Events in Jerusalem and tit-for-tat cross-border fire add to an already tense political atmosphere in Israel, which is reeling from weeks of protests, which have included large numbers of military reservists, over the government’s plans to limit the powers of the supreme court.
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