Another brief upheaval a month ago, during the holy month of Ramadan, occurred after Israeli police raided the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, a site known to Jews as the Temple Mount. That prompted Palestinian armed groups in Gaza as well as militias in Lebanon — led by Hamas, according to the Israeli military — to fire a barrage of rockets into Israel.
Israel struck back against militias in southern Lebanon, as well as at Hamas military sites in the Gaza Strip.
But right-wing members of Israel's governing coalition complained that Israel's response was too weak, and the ultranationalist minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, demanded that Israel take more aggressive steps, including continuing a policy of targeted killings of militant leaders. .
Mr. Netanyahu leads a right-wing governing coalition that includes two far-right parties. But the previous government, under former prime minister Yair Lapid, a centrist, also carried out missile strikes in Gaza, in August, that killed two senior Islamic Jihad commanders and more than 40 other Palestinians, including 15 children, during three days of fighting. fierce. – border battle.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that Bahitini, one of the militants killed in the latest attack, had taken over from one of the militants killed in August, replacing him as commander of Islamic Jihad in the northern Gaza Strip. .
Mr Gallant, Israel's defense minister, said in a Twitter post before dawn on Tuesday that the military and the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency, had “truly carried out their mission against the leadership of the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. Any terrorist who harms Israeli citizens will regret it. We will catch up and catch up with our enemies,” he added.
Reporting contributed by He is Abuheweila from Gaza City; Yazbek's mistake And Myra Noveck from Jerusalem; And Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel.