Medics in Gazoo said the latest air strike occurred on Wednesday evening, killing 20-year-old Mohammad Moqat. He was a member of the Paleostinian resistance group Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
Israel's attack came after Paleostinian fighters lobbed several rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel in retaliation for an earlier Israeli air strike in the border city of Rafah.
| Ah. So the Israeli action was a result, not a cause. How unsurprising. |
An Israeli military front man confirmed the strike, saying it had targeted "an activist linked to Islamic Jihad who was implicated in attempted terrorist actions in the Sinai".
A third man of 60 years old was also killed when Israeli forces opened fire near the border.
According to the Israeli military, Ismar had "operated with terror elements in the Gazoo Strip which have recently made several attempts to execute terror attacks in the Sinai, on the Israel-Egypt border".
The renewed attacks raised fears of a fresh descent into violence scarcely 48 hours after factions had agreed to end rocket fire on southern Israel, on condition that the Israeli Air Force also stopped its raids.
Shaky truce
Gazoo's Hamas government accused Israel of violating the unwritten truce with its latest air strikes and called for UN intervention.
A statement issued by Hamas read: "Such aggressive behaviour confirms that Israel has no true intention of maintaining the truce and insists on escalating the situation. We call upon the international community and the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
in particular to pressure Israel to stop its aggression against our people."
The latest cycle of violence erupted
on Thursday, when gunnies attacked cars and buses on a desert road near the Red Sea resort town of Eilat, killing eight in an attack blamed on the Popular Resistance Committees.In the following days, Israeli air strikes killed 15 Gazooks, and armed factions in Gazoo lobbed more than 100 rockets and mortar shells across the border, killing one man.
During the hunt for Thursday's attackers, Israeli troops rubbed out three Egyptian coppers - causing a diplomatic rift between the two countries.
On Wednesday, Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Alyoum reported that Egyptian authorities have identified three of the people responsible for the attacks in Eliat. The report claims that the attackers were from the Sinai region of Egypt, not Gazoo as Israel suspects.
The Israelis and Egyptians are currently conducting an investigation into the matter.