Israel killed the military commander of the Islamist group Hamas Ahmed Al-jaabari in a missile strike on the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and launched air raids across the enclave, pushing the two sides to the brink of a new war.
Hamas said Ahmed Al-Jaabari, who ran the organization's armed wing, the Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam, died along with a passenger after their car was targeted by an Israeli missile.
The Hamas Interior Ministry said that 20 raids against Gaza
killed 6 persons including the most prominent leaders
of the al-Qassam brigades.
Israel's Shin Bet domestic intelligence service confirmed it had carried out the attack, saying it had killed Jaabri because of his "decade-long terrorist activity".
Following the incident, Israeli officials said that Jaabari’s killing is
not the end of the Gaza operations adding that "more attacks will
follow".
In this context, a witness said that Israeli air forces hit multiple Gaza targets, including Hamas police stations.
The IDF declared the onset of a wide scale military operation against Hamas and other organizations in Gaza and said that they targeted the location of a Hamas long-range missile in Gaza.
Israel's aerial assault on the Gaza Strip on Wednesday could draw cross-border Palestinian rocket attacks and stretch into days of fighting, the Israeli military spokesman said.
"The days we face in the south will, in my estimation, prove protracted," Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai told Channel 2 TV after Israeli air strikes killed the Military Chief of Gaza's Hamas government.
On the other hand, the Hamas Armed Wing said that the Israeli airstrike in Gaza has “opened the gates of hell”.
POSITIONS:
The leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip called on Arab states, especially Egypt, to halt Israel's assault on the Palestinian enclave, which was launched earlier on Wednesday.
"We call on our Arab brothers, and especially Egypt ... and the new Egyptian presidency, to suppress this barbaric campaign in defence of Gaza and its people," Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of Hamas's Gaza government said in a statement.
"I call for an urgent Arab summit to confront the brutal aggression," he added.
The Cairo-based Arab League will discuss the Israeli attack on Gaza at a special meeting to be held either on Thursday or Saturday, a senior League diplomat told Reuters.
"We are working to gather the Arab states' permanent representatives in the Arab League to hold an urgent meeting...that could either be Thursday or Saturday," Lebanon representative in the League, Khaled Ziadeh told Reuters.
Spokesman of the US Defense Department said that Washington is closely
observing the situation in Gaza after Israel killed one of the most
prominent leaders of the Qassam Brigades.
He expressed Wasington’s support to the right of Tel Aviv "to defend itself against terrorism”.
Egypt's foreign ministry condemned on Wednesday a series of Israeli strikes that killed a top Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip and urged the Jewish state to end them immediately.
"Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr condemned the series of air strikes that Israel is currently conducting against Gaza Strip and which led to the killing of Ahmed Al-Jaabari," the statement released by Egypt's foreign ministry said.
"He called on Israel to stop its strikes on Gaza Strip immediately," the statement added.
The U.N. chief on Wednesday called on Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants to prevent an escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controls, and urged both sides to ensure civilians will be protected, a U.N. spokesman said.
"The Secretary-General calls for an immediate de-escalation of tensions," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said, adding that it was a reiteration of Ban's already-stated position.
"Both sides should do everything to avoid further escalation and they must respect their obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure the protection of civilians at all times," he told reporters.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Wednesday for an urgent Arab League meeting on Israel's strikes on Gaza, Egypt's news agency MENA said, quoting a Palestinian official in Egypt.
"Barakat al-Fara, the Palestinian ambassador in Cairo and the Palestinian representative in the Arab League, announced that based on instructions from President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian state had asked for an urgent meeting of the Arab League to discuss the Israeli offense on Gaza strip," MENA said.
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani on Wednesday condemned the Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip that killed Hamas's top military commander and at least six other Palestinians and said they should not go unpunished.
"I condemn in the name of Qatar. This filthy crime must not pass without a punishment," Sheikh Hamad told journalists after a meeting in the Saudi capital between Gulf Cooperation Council Foreign Ministers and their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on Wednesday for an end to violence in the Gaza Strip after Israeli air strikes killed the military commander of Hamas's armed wing and six other Palestinians.
Speaking at a news conference after a meeting with Gulf Arab foreign ministers in the Saudi capital Riyadh, Lavrov said: "It is important that attacks and violence (in Gaza) stop."
Egypt recalled its ambassador from Israel on Wednesday after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed Hamas's top military commander and at least six other Palestinians, presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said.
"On this basis he has recalled the Egyptian ambassador from Israel; has ordered the Egyptian representative at the United Nations to call for an emergency meeting at the Security Council and summoned the Israeli ambassador in Egypt in protest over the assault," the statement added
REUTERS/LBCI
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