Six Islamic Jihad militants were killed in an Israeli air raid on Gaza on Saturday, the Palestinian organisation said, warning of a retaliation. The militants were members of the group’s armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades, at a training camp near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Medics confirmed the death toll.
An Israeli army spokesman, contacted by AFP, said the air force carried out a raid on Gaza but declined to give further details. An Al-Quds Brigades commander, Ahmed al-Sheikh Khalil, was among the militants killed in the air strike, according to the Islamic Jihad. The group also pledged to “respond” to the raid.
Early Thursday the Israeli air force carried out three raids on the Gaza Strip after a Grad rocket was launched from the Hamas-controlled territory at southern Israel, witnesses said. The raids targeted areas east and west of Khan Yunes in the south of the Strip, and a base of Hamas’s armed wing the Al-Qassam Brigades was hit, they said.
An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that aircraft had “attacked three terrorist sites in the Gaza Strip as well as an arms factory in the south of the territory.”