The IDF attacked a cell of the Islamic Jihad that was preparing to launch rockets from Khan Yunis, around 11:30 AM Wednesday. Arab sources the terrorists were shelled by Israeli tanks. The same sources confirmed there were several injured, some of them critical.
כלי טיס תקף לפני זמן קצר כלי רכב ובו פעילי טרור שהיו בדרכם לעמדת שיגור רקטות בחאן יונס.
צה"ל ימשיך לפעול על מנת לשמר את ביטחונם של תושבי מדינת ישראל. pic.twitter.com/VtpwsdoEeu
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) May 10, 2023
Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar which is affiliated with Hezbollah, claimed on Wednesday that Hamas and Jihad are implementing tactics that are “contrary to the expectations of the occupation,” and are preparing a response that “will teach it a lesson.” According to the newspaper, there are intense contacts between the two organizations, and a source in Hamas was quoted as saying: “The resistance leadership has put all the options on the table, the response will be unified and not limited to a specific front.”
Israeli commentators offered a different explanation: the Islamic Jihad is frustrated by Hamas’s reluctance to join in an all-out attack on Israel. On its own, the best the Jihad can do is launch anti-tank or other rockets, efforts that have so far been thwarted at a great cost to the terrorists by the IDF’s dense network of armed drones.
There are two other reasons why Hamas would rather not go to war: more than 10,000 Gazans go to work in Israel every weekday, bringing home much higher salaries than can be found in the Strip. Each time the border crossings are closed for fear of a terrorist volley of rockets, those workers and their families go hungry.
And then, there’s the beautiful, modern neighborhood being constructed by Egyptian companies with Qatari money in the northern Gaza Strip. This subsidized affordable housing (a unit’s cost to the buyer is $50 thousand) goes a long way to improve life for the densest population on the planet. Hamas is aware that in a 2014-style confrontation with Israel, all this luxury could become heaps of rubble.
But while Hamas is a reluctant partner in this war, Iran, which is the Jihad’s major funder, is pressing for revenge. If Jihad does not carry out a big retaliation, this would also reflect on the ability of Hezbollah and Iran’s proxy militias to intimidate Israel.
