Stepping Up, Sitting Out

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Israeli airstrikes killed three Palestinian militant group commanders and 10 others in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the latest round of violence in one of the deadliest periods in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in years, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Israel’s military said the strikes targeted senior leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a US-designated terrorist group blamed for recent cross-border rocket fire and for coordinating militant activities in the occupied West Bank.

It added that the three individuals had been involved in rocket fire or attacks on Israelis in recent weeks. Tuesday’s bombing is part of a new operation against Islamic Jihad, including hitting sites the group uses to manufacture weapons, rockets and store cement for building underground tunnels, the military noted.

Palestinian officials, meanwhile, countered that the death toll included civilians, adding that at least 20 people were injured. Israeli authorities are probing reports of civilian casualties.

The airstrikes come amid a particularly acute flare-up in violence in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict: More than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or civilians since January. At least 16 Israelis and two foreigners have been killed in Palestinian attacks – all of them civilians except one police officer.

Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas – another US-designated terrorist group, which controls the Gaza Strip – vowed to respond to the commanders’ killings.

Even so, Israeli military officials questioned whether Hamas – which has fought Israel in a number of conflicts – would join the current hostilities.

Israeli jets assassinated prominent Islamic Jihad militants in both 2019 and 2022, sparking days of Palestinian rocket barrages and Israeli bombings.

Hamas did not participate in the fighting in either conflict.