militants
26 members of new militant group ‘Jamatul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya' held so far: Rab
With the arrest of four more members of 'Jamatul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya' from Laksham upazila in Cumilla, 26 members of the new militant outfit have been arrested so far, said Rapid Action Battalion (Rab).
Commander Khandaker Al Moin, director of Rab’s legal and Media Wing, revealed the information while briefing the media on Friday in Dhaka’s Karwan Bazar over the arrest.
Recently they arrested four militants -Md Abdul Kader, 24, Md Ismail Hossain,22, Muntasir Ahmmed alias Bacchu,23, and Helal Ahmed Zakaria, 33, he said.
Read more:Rab intensifies anti-militancy drive in CHT, 10 arrested
Tipped-off, they were arrested during a drive conducted by Rab-11 and Detective Branch in Laksham on Thursday night.
The elite force also seized some leaflets, books on radical views from the arrestees, Commander Khandaker Al Moin said.
During interrogation they confessed to planning sabotages in different places across the country, said Moin.
They gave concrete information about six council or Shura members of the militant group including its amir (head) Mahmud, he said.
The arrestees also disclosed that the militant group had an agreement with separatist group Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) to provide them shelter and training in exchange of money, he added.
“The militant group has provided Tk 17 lakh to KNF to buy arms to train up their members. They gets fund to serve their purposes from different sources,” said the Rab official.
In 2019, ‘Jamatul Ansar fil Hindal Sharqiya’ (Jamatul Ansar of Eastern Hind) was formed.
Some leaders and activists of different levels of banned militant groups of Bangladesh including Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Ansar Al Islam and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), joined together to start the activities of this radical militant group, said the Rab official.
Read more:Militants’ involvement with CHT’s KNF group being investigated: Home Minister
On Oct 21, the elite force said they arrested 10 people including seven members of the newly launched militant outfit and three members of KNF from Bandarban and Rangamati.
In 2021, the Amir of Jamatul Ansar fil Hindal Sharqiya had an agreement with the CHT-based armed group KNF regarding militant training in the area till next year, sad Rab.
As per the agreement, Tk 3 lakh per month and food expenses of all KNF members were to be borne, according to Rab.
Earlier, on October 10, five men, including three youths, who apparently left home to join militant groups have been arrested by the Rab members from the capital's Jatrabari and Keraniganj.
On August 23, eight youths from Cumilla sadar upazila went missing and a general diary was lodged with police in this regard after two days.
The incident sparked a huge sensation across media and social media and Rab started an investigation to rescue the victims and arrest the accused.
On September 1, one of the missing youths, Shartaz Islam Niloy, 22, returned home.
On October 6, Rab arrested seven people including four missing youths for involvement with a militant group from a drive conducted in Munshiganj, Naryanganj and Mymensingh following the information collected from questioning Niloy.
On interrogation, the arrestees revealed that initially the members of the organization used to target youths from different parts of the country, including Cumilla.
Tourists leaving Bandarban amid security drive to remove suspected militants, criminals
Tourists have started leaving Bandarban district as local administration has imposed a temporary ban on tourism at Ruma and Rowangchhari upazilas from Tuesday (October 18, 2022) morning as a security drive was going on to either arrest or remove suspected militants and criminals from the hilly region.
The administration has also discouraged tourists to travel to Thanchi and Alikadam upazilas amid security operations of the joint forces in the bordering areas of Ruma and Rowangchhari.
The military was joined by the members of the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) in the drive as the security officials were conducting extensive searches in the surrounding villages.
Read Temporary ban on tourism at Rowangchhari and Ruma to fight terrorists
Military helicopters of the security forces were also patrolling the areas.
On Monday night, Bandarban’s district administration imposed the travel ban at Rowangchhari and Ruma.
On Tuesday morning, tourists carrying vehicles heading for Thanchi had been sent back to Bandarban sadar upazila from Milanchari police outpost, said Md Kamal Hossain, general secretary of Bandarban Micro-jeep-mahendra Owner’s Cooperative Association.
Read BIPSS roundtable: Bangladesh needs proper strategies to counter terrorism.
The tourists are only allowed to visit Meghla and Nilachal Tourism spots in the hilly town, he said.
Most of the hotels were vacant and bookings have been canceled after the ban, said the hotel owners in Bandarban.
Authorities of the Hotel Hilton and the Hotel Hill View said those who came to stay on Tuesday morning have canceled their plans and some headed toward Cox’s Bazar.
Read Militants' involvement with CHT's KNF group being investigated
On Tuesday morning, a group of 70 people were supposed to check-in at the Sairu Hill Resort at Thanchi, but they couldn’t reach as the Thanchi road was blocked, Mir Atiqur Rahman, deputy manager of the luxury residential complex, told UNB.
“A group of 40 people also checked out in the morning, so the resort is empty now,” he said.
Md Tariqul Islam, Superintendent of Police in Bandarban, said that the movement of tourists in Bandarban was being prohibited or discouraged by the orders of the higher authorities.
Read Govt out to create anarchy through terror acts: BNP
Israel, militants trade fire as Gaza death toll climbs to 24
Israeli airstrikes flattened homes in Gaza on Saturday and Palestinian rocket barrages into southern Israel persisted for a second day, raising fears of another major escalation in the Mideast conflict. Gaza’s health ministry said 24 people had been killed so far in the coastal strip, including six children.
The fighting began with Israel’s killing of a senior commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group in a wave of strikes Friday that Israel said were meant to prevent an imminent attack.
So far, Hamas, the larger militant group that rules Gaza, appeared to stay on the sidelines of the conflict, keeping its intensity somewhat contained. Israel and Hamas fought a war barely a year ago, one of four major conflicts and several smaller battles over the last 15 years that exacted a staggering toll on the impoverished territory’s 2 million Palestinian residents.
Whether Hamas continues to stay out of the fight likely depends in part on how much punishment Israel inflicts in Gaza as rocket fire steadily continues.
The Israeli military said an errant rocket fired by Palestinian militants killed civilians late Saturday, including children, in the town of Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. The military said it investigated the incident and concluded “without a doubt” that it was caused by a misfire on the part of Islamic Jihad. There was no official Palestinian comment on the incident.
A Palestinian medical worker, who was not authorized to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the blast killed at least six people, including three children.
An airstrike in the southern city of Rafah destroyed a home and heavily damaged surrounding buildings. The Health Ministry said at least two people were killed and 32 wounded, including children. A teenage boy was recovered from the rubble, and the other slain individual was identified by his family as Ziad al-Mudalal, the son of an Islamic Jihad official.
The military said it targeted Khaled Mansour, Islamic Jihad's commander for southern Gaza. Neither Israel nor the militant group said whether he was hit. The Civil Defense said responders were still sifting through the rubble and that a digger was being sent from Gaza City.
Another strike Saturday hit a car, killing a 75-year-old woman and wounding six other people.
In one of the strikes, fighter jets dropped two bombs on the house of an Islamic Jihad member after Israel warned people to evacuate the area. The blast flattened the two-story structure, leaving a large rubble-filled crater, and badly damaged surrounding homes.
Women and children rushed out of the area.
“Warned us? They warned us with rockets and we fled without taking anything,” said Huda Shamalakh, who lived next door. She said 15 people lived in the targeted home.
Among the 24 Palestinians killed were six children and two women, as well as the senior Islamic Jihad commander. The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 200 people have been wounded. It does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. The Israeli military said Friday that early estimates were that around 15 fighters were killed.
Read: Israel and Gaza militants exchange fire after deadly strikes
The lone power plant in Gaza ground to a halt at noon Saturday for lack of fuel as Israel has kept its crossing points into Gaza closed since Tuesday. With the new disruption, Gazans can get only 4 hours of electricity a day, increasing their reliance on private generators and deepening the territory’s chronic power crisis amid peak summer heat.
Throughout the day, Gaza militants regularly launched rounds of rockets into Israel. The Israeli military said Saturday evening that nearly 450 rockets had been fired, 350 of which made it into Israel, but almost all were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system. Two people suffered minor shrapnel wounds.
One rocket barrage was fired toward Tel Aviv, setting off sirens that sent residents to shelters, but the rockets were either intercepted or fell into the sea, the military said.
Sunday could be a critical day in the flare-up, as Jews mark Tisha B’av, a somber day of fasting that commemorates the destruction of the biblical temples. Thousands are expected at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, and Israeli media reported that the Israeli leadership was expected to allow lawmakers to visit a key hilltop holy site in the city that is a flashpoint for violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
The violence poses an early test for Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who assumed the role of caretaker prime minister ahead of elections in November, when he hopes to keep the position.
Lapid, a centrist former TV host and author, has experience in diplomacy having served as foreign minister in the outgoing government, but has thin security credentials. A conflict with Gaza could burnish his standing and give him a boost as he faces off against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a security hawk who led the country during three of its four wars with Hamas.
Hamas also faces a dilemma in deciding whether to join a new battle barely a year after the last war caused widespread devastation. There has been almost no reconstruction since then, and the isolated coastal territory is mired in poverty, with unemployment hovering around 50%. Israel and Egypt have maintained a tight blockade over the territory since the Hamas takeover in 2007.
Egypt on Saturday intensified efforts to prevent escalation, communicating with Israel, the Palestinians and the United States to keep Hamas from joining the fighting, an Egyptian intelligence official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The latest round of Israel-Gaza violence was rooted in the arrest earlier this week of a senior Islamic Jihad leader in the occupied West Bank, part of a monthslong Israeli military operation.
Israel then closed roads around Gaza and sent reinforcements to the border, bracing for retaliation. On Friday, it killed Islamic Jihad’s commander for northern Gaza, Taiseer al-Jabari, in a strike on a Gaza City apartment building.
An Israeli military spokesman said the strikes were in response to an “imminent threat” from two militant squads armed with anti-tank missiles.
Hamas seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew from the coastal strip. Its most recent war with Israel was in May 2021. Tensions soared again 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.
Iran-backed Islamic Jihad is smaller than Hamas but largely shares its ideology. Both groups oppose Israel’s existence and have carried out scores of deadly attacks over the years.
Iraqi soldiers kill nine IS militants
Iraqi soldiers killed nine militants of the Islamic State on Wednesday during an operation in the northern province of Kirkuk, the Iraqi military said.
Iraqi soldiers surrounded nine militants holed up in a tunnel in Kraw Mountain there, some 250 km north of Baghdad, bombed the tunnel and killed all the militants inside, the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement.
READ: U.S. carries out airdrops in Syria's Hasakah, kills 8 IS militants
Over the past few months, Iraqi security forces have carried out operations against the extremist militants to crack down on their intensified activities.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since 2017. However, Islamic State remnants have melted into urban centers, deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.
Militants in Afghanistan strike Pakistan army post, kill 3
Militants in Afghanistan fired heavy weapons across the border into a Pakistani military outpost overnight, killing three personnel, the army said Saturday, in the latest violence to rattle the volatile region.
A firefight ensued with the militants firing toward the army post in Pakistan's rugged North Waziristan region, and several were killed, the statement said. There was no immediate way to independently confirm details of the attack.
It comes as Afghanistan is reeling from a series of explosions in recent days, including the bombing of a mosque in northern Kunduz province on Friday that killed 33 people, including several students of an adjacent religious school or madrassa.
Also read: Pakistan warns neighbor Afghanistan not to shelter militants
That includes an attack Thursday on the Abdul Rahim Shaheed school in Kabul that killed seven children. It re-opened on Saturday, with children remembering their fallen classmates with roses.
The striking increase in attacks in Afghanistan — as well as in neighboring Pakistan — highlights the growing security challenge facing Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, who swept to power last August in the closing days of the chaotic withdrawal of American and NATO troops ending their 20-year war.
Even as their harsh religiously motivated edicts, which seemed reminiscent of their late 1990s rule, drew harsh criticism, their seemingly heavy-handed approach to security brought early expectations of improved safety.
However a vicious Islamic State affiliate known as the Islamic State in Khorasn Province, or IS-K — which claimed the recent spate of attacks in Afghanistan as well as a growing number in neighboring Pakistan — is proving an intractable challenge.
IS-K took responsibility for a series of attacks across Afghanistan on Thursday, most of which targeted the country's minority Shiites who the radical Sunni Muslim group revile as heretics.
Also read: Pakistan to work with Afghanistan, other neighbors to combat terrorism: army chief
Still, the IS-K, which is an enemy of Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, is not the only militant organization in Afghanistan contributing to the security dilemma facing Kabul's religiously driven government.
The violent Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or (TTP) — which the United Nations says numbers around 10,000 in Afghanistan — has stepped up its assault on Pakistan's military outposts from its Afghan hideouts. Even the upstart IS-K has taken responsibility for some of the attacks targeting Pakistani military personnel, damaging relations between the two countries.
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have promised no militant group would use its soil as a base to attack another country, but Kabul has yet to arrest or hand over any TTP leaders in Afghanistan to Pakistan. Other militant groups also operating in Afghanistan include China's militant Uighurs of East Turkistan Movement, which seeks independence for northwest China, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).
Some of the groups are loosely allied to the IS-K , while others act more independently, but on Saturday Pakistan's military statement warned Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to do more.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the use of Afghan soil by terrorists for activities against Pakistan and expects that the Afghan Government will not allow conduct of such activities, in future,” said the Pakistan military statement.
After seven of its troops were killed in an ambush earlier this month, Pakistan on April 16 retaliated with bombing raids inside Afghanistan that locals in Afghanistan's eastern Khost province said killed dozens of refugees. The United Nations Education Fund (UNICEF) confirmed 20 children were killed in the strikes in Afghanistan's border provinces of Khost and Kunar.
At the Abdul Rahim Shaheed School, which was among the IS-K targets in the Thursday attacks, school principal Ghulam Haider Husseini handed roses to each student as they arrived.
He also gave students a pen saying “it is our pen who will bring about a change in this situation.”
2 suspected JMB militants held in Nilphamari
Members of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit under Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) have arrested two suspected members of banned militant outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) from Sadar upazila of Nilphamari.
The arrestees were identified as Md Anwar Hossain alias Apel, 26, and Md Hafizul Islam, 30, both of Nilphamari district.
According to a media release from Bangladesh Police, an ATU team, tipped-off, made the arrest after conducting separate drives at Sutipara village and Uttara EPZ area of the district on Monday.
READ: Suspected JMB militant held in capital
During the drive, two mobile sets, three SIM cards, books on extremism and several leaflets were recovered from their possession, said the release.
A case was filed at Nilphamari Sadar police station against the arrestees, it added.
Israel, Palestinian militants use bodies as bargaining chips
More than a year after his son was killed by Israeli forces under disputed circumstances in the occupied West Bank, Mustafa Erekat is still seeking his remains.
It is one of dozens of cases in which Israel is holding the remains of Palestinians killed in conflict, citing the need to deter attacks and potentially exchange them for the remains of two Israeli soldiers held by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians and human rights groups view the practice of holding bodies as a form of collective punishment that inflicts further suffering on bereaved families.
“They have no right to keep my son, and it is my right for my son to have a good funeral,” Erekat said.
The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, a Palestinian rights group, says Israel is holding the bodies of at least 82 Palestinians since the policy was established in 2015. It says many are buried in secret cemeteries where the plots are only marked by plaques of numbers. Hamas holds the remains of the two Israeli soldiers killed during the 2014 Gaza war in an undisclosed location.
Last year, Israel's Security Cabinet expanded the policy to include the holding of the remains of all Palestinians killed during alleged attacks, and not just those connected to Hamas. Israel considers Hamas, which rules Gaza, a terrorist group.
Read: Israel hits Hamas targets in Gaza in response to rocket fire
Defense Minister Benny Gantz said at the time that holding the remains deterred attacks and would help ensure the return of Israeli captives and remains. The Defense Ministry declined to comment on the policy.
One of the bodies is that of Erekat's son, Ahmed, who Israeli officials say was shot and killed after deliberately plowing into a military checkpoint in June 2020. Security camera footage shows the car veering into a group of Israeli soldiers and sending one of them flying back. Ahmed steps out of the car and raises one of his hands before he is shot multiple times and falls to the ground.
His family says it was an accident. Mustafa said his son was passing through the checkpoint on his way to the nearby city of Bethlehem to buy clothes for his sister's wedding later that night. The shooting attracted widespread attention, in part because Ahmed was the nephew of Saeb Erekat, a veteran Palestinian spokesman and negotiator who died last year.
Ahmed was to get married soon, his father said: ”He had a house that was ready for him."
To this day, he has no idea where his son's remains are.
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Israel has turned “corpses into bargaining chips." The policy is “deliberately and unlawfully punishing the families of the deceased, who are not accused of any wrongdoing," he said.
Read:Gaza border clashes wound 24 Palestinians, Israeli policeman
Israel has a long history of exchanging prisoners and remains with its enemies. In 2011, it traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier who had been captured by Palestinian militants five years earlier and was being held in Gaza.
In 2008, it traded five Lebanese prisoners, including a notorious militant, and the remains of nearly 200 Lebanese and Palestinians killed in fighting, for the remains of two Israeli soldiers captured by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group two years earlier.
Egypt has been mediating negotiations over a similar agreement that would return the remains of the two soldiers, as well as two Israeli civilians believed to be alive, held by Hamas in Gaza.
In the meantime, the Erekats and other Palestinian families must turn to Israel's Supreme Court in a process involving multiple hearings that can drag on for years.
The court denied a recent appeal by the Erekats, citing confidential information submitted by the military. Mustafa Erekat says the system is rigged. He accused the court of dragging its feet until the policy on holding the remains was expanded and then relying on secret evidence.
Mohammed Aliyan, spokesman for six Palestinian families who filed a Supreme Court petition for the return of their relatives' bodies in 2016, said the judges initially sided with the families before an appeal from the military.
“They always go along with the military’s demands,” Aliyan told The Associated Press, “They are afraid to take any decision against them.”
Read: A birthday gift: Israeli woman donates kidney to Gaza boy
Liron Libman, an expert on military law at the Israel Democracy Institute, said there are situations where certain pieces of information can’t be made public for fear of exposing protected sources or special operations.
“Each side has the right to request a postponement of the hearing, and the court will accept the request if it believes it is for a justifiable reason,” Libman told the AP.
Even if a family’s petition is successful, locating relatives’ bodies for exhumation can pose further challenges, especially in cases when bodies were buried decades ago.
Rami Saleh, the director of Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, said his organization has dealt with cases where Israeli authorities were unable to locate bodies and also those where Palestinian family members needed to take DNA tests to confirm the remains of a relative.
Mustafa said he has not given up hope and intends to challenge the Supreme Court's decision. In the meantime, he and Aliyan, the spokesman for the other families, attend weekly sit-ins calling for the release of all bodies held by Israeli authorities.
“The feeling of not being able to bury your relative’s body is more painful than their death,” Aliyan said.
Suspected Ansarullah militants held in Mymensingh
Anti Terrorism Unit (ATU) of Police on Friday claimed to have arrested two members of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) from Muktagachha upazila in Mymensingh.
The arrestees have been identified as Md Kawsar Ahmed alias Milon (30), son of Abdul Majid of Bokchar village in Muktagacha upazila, and Zahid Mostafa (20), son of Mostafa Mofazzal Haque Shariful of Chandimondo village.
Acting on a tip-off, sources said, a team of ATU conducted a drive in the Kalibari Mosque area of Chechua Bazar in Muktagachha upazila on Thursday night and nabbed the duo.
Two mobile phones, four SIM cards and seven books on extremism were seized from the possession of the accused, the ATU said in a release.
READ: Police: 10 female Jamaat leaders held in Satkhira
Screenshots of 34-page Facebook and Messenger chats about their organisation's extremist activities have been found stored in their mobile phones, according to ATU.
The duo were selling books on extremism to ABT members across the country, using multiple fake Facebook IDs.
READ: Suspected Ansarullah militants held in Mymensingh
A case has been filed against the two at Muktagachha police station, said the release
Two suspected Ansar militants arrested in Khulna
Khulna Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Tuesday claimed to have arrested two members of the banned militant outfit Ansar al-Islam.
The two been identified as Nasim, son of Nazrul Islam of the Mohammadnagar area of Labanchara, and Hasan, son of Khokon Mollah of the same area.
Read: HC releases full text of verdict upholding death penalty of 10 militants
A number of bombs, bomb-making materials, a motorcycle, a mobile phone and some jihadi books have been seized from their possession, CID officials said.
Khulna Metropolitan and District CID assistant superintendent Tapas Karmakar said that a CID team, acting on a tip-off, conducted a raid close to Moylapota mosque in the city on Monday noon.
The CID sleuths nabbed the duo when they tried to escape, Tapas said. During intense interrogation, they told cops that they were active members of Ansar's military wing and had been involved in making bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Read:N’ganj raid: ‘Militant’ held with bomb, bomb-making materials
Post-interrogation, the CID sleuths raided Nasim's rented house in the city around 3 pm and seized an air gun, 63 rounds of pellets, 283 grams of gunpowder, 405 bearing balls and other items.
"Legal steps are being initiated in this regard," said the CID official.
Israeli tanks pound Gaza ahead of possible ground incursion
Israeli artillery pounded northern Gaza early Friday in an attempt to destroy a vast network of militant tunnels inside the territory, the military said, bringing the front lines closer to dense civilian areas and paving the way for a potential ground invasion.
Israel has massed troops along the border and called up 9,000 reservists following days of fighting with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza. Palestinians militants have fired some 1,800 rockets and the military has launched more than 600 airstrikes, toppling at least three apartment blocks.
The stepped-up fighting came as communal violence in Israel erupted for a fourth night, with Jewish and Arab mobs clashing in the flashpoint town of Lod. The fighting took place despite a bolstered police presence ordered by the nation’s leaders.
Masses of red flames illuminated the skies as the deafening blasts from the outskirts of Gaza City jolted people awake.
In the northern Gaza Strip, Rafat Tanani, his pregnant wife and four children were killed after an Israeli warplane reduced the building to rubble, residents said. Sadallah Tanani, a relative, said the family was “wiped out from the population register” without warning. “It was a massacre. My feelings are indescribable,” he said.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said tanks stationed near the border fired 50 rounds. It was part of a large operation that also involved airstrikes and was aimed at destroying tunnels beneath Gaza City used by militants to evade surveillance and airstrikes, which the military refers to as “the Metro.”
Also read: Israeli police, Palestinians clash at Jerusalem holy site
“As always, the aim is to strike military targets and to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties,” he said. “Unlike our very elaborate efforts to clear civilian areas before we strike high-rise or large buildings inside Gaza, that wasn’t feasible this time.”
The strikes came after Egyptian mediators rushed to Israel for cease-fire talks that showed no signs of progress. Saleh Aruri, an exiled senior Hamas leader, told London-based satellite channel Al Araby that his group has turned down a proposal for a three-hour lull. He said Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations were leading the truce efforts.
The fighting broke out late Monday when Hamas fired a long-range rocket at Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests there against the policing of a flashpoint holy site and efforts by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families from their homes.
Since then, Israel has attacked hundreds of targets in Gaza, causing earth-shaking explosions across the densely populated territory. Gaza militants have fired 1,800 rockets into Israel, including more than 400 that fell short or misfired, according to the military.
The rockets have brought life in parts of southern Israel to a standstill, and several barrages have targeted the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) away from Gaza.
The Gaza Health Ministry says the death toll has risen to 119 killed, including 31 children and 19 women, with 830 wounded. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups have confirmed 20 deaths in their ranks, though Israel says that number is much higher. Seven people have been killed in Israel, including a 6-year-old boy and a soldier.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the operation, saying in a video statement that Israel would “extract a very heavy price from Hamas.”
In Washington, President Joe Biden said he spoke with Netanyahu about calming the fighting but also backed the Israeli leader by saying “there has not been a significant overreaction.”
He said the goal now is to “get to a point where there is a significant reduction in attacks, particularly rocket attacks.” He called the effort “a work in progress.”
Israel has come under heavy international criticism for civilian casualties during three previous wars in Gaza, a densely populated area that is home to more than 2 million Palestinians. It says Hamas is responsible for endangering civilians by placing military infrastructure in civilian areas and launching rockets from them.
Hamas showed no signs of backing down. It fired its most powerful rocket, the Ayyash, nearly 200 kilometers (120 miles) into southern Israel. The rocket landed in the open desert but briefly disrupted flight traffic at the southern Ramon airport. Hamas has also launched two drones that Israel said it quickly shot down.
Hamas military spokesman Abu Obeida said the group was not afraid of a ground invasion, which would be a chance “to increase our catch” of dead or captive soldiers.
The fighting cast a pall over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, normally marked by family gatherings and festive meals. Instead, the streets of Gaza were mostly empty.
Also read: More Jerusalem clashes on eve of contentious Israeli parade
The current eruption of violence began a month ago in Jerusalem. A focal point of clashes was Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, built on a hilltop compound that is revered by Jews and Muslims. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem, which includes sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, to be the capital of their future state.
The violent clashes between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem and other mixed cities across Israel has meanwhile added a new layer of volatility to the conflict not seen in more than two decades.
A Jewish man was shot and seriously wounded in Lod, the epicenter of the troubles, and Israeli media said a second Jewish man was shot. In the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Jaffa, an Israeli soldier was attacked by a group of Arabs and hospitalized in serious condition.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said some 750 suspects have been arrested since the communal violence began earlier this week. He said police had clashed overnight with individuals in Lod and Tel Aviv who hurled rocks and firebombs at them.
The fighting deepened a political crisis that has sent Israel careening through four inconclusive elections in just two years. After March elections, Netanyahu failed to form a government coalition. Now his political rivals have three weeks to try to do so.
Also read: Israeli police beef up presence in Jerusalem, fearing unrest
Those efforts have been greatly complicated by the fighting. His opponents include a broad range of parties that have little in common. They would need the support of an Arab party, whose leader has said he cannot negotiate while Israel is fighting in Gaza.