EXPLAINER: What is driving the current violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli airstrikes have killed 11 people, including a senior commander from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed militant group, who was slain in a targeted attack.
The group was founded in 1981 with the aim of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and all of what is now Israel. It is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, European Union and other governments. Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad is sworn to Israel’s destruction.Israel’s archenemy Iran supplies Islamic Jihad with training, expertise and money, but most of the group’s weapons are locally produced.
Al-Jabari, 50, was a member of Islamic Jihad’s “military council,” the group’s decision-making body in Gaza. He was in charge of the Islamic Jihad militant activities in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip during the 2021 war. Israel said he was preparing to launch an anti-tank missile attack against Israel.His death came on the heels of the arrest by Israel of a senior Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank earlier this week.
Hamas must walk a tightrope between restraining Islamic Jihad’s fire at Israel while avoiding the ire of Palestinians if it cracks down on the group. Like in past flare-ups, Hamas will have the final say in how long — and how violent — this round of fighting will last.The current fighting comes as Israel is mired in a protracted political crisis that is sending voters to the polls for the fifth time in less than four years in the fall.
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