Of the at least ten who were killed, five were civilians, hospital personnel told Reuters. Witnesses tell the news agency that at least two explosions were heard, one in Gaza City and another in Rafah. Leaders of Islamic Holy War The Israeli Defense Forces say they attacked three senior leaders of Islamic Holy War, the second most powerful of the armed groups in Gaza, and that the three are responsible for recent rocket attacks on Israel. The IDF refers to them as the group’s leader in the north of the Gaza Strip, an intermediary between the group’s members in Gaza and the West Bank and as a member of the group’s military council. Two sources in the group confirm to Reuters that the three have been killed. Witnesses tell AP that an apartment block in Gaza and a house in Rafah have been hit. Men gather near a damaged house after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip on the night of May 9, 2023 Photo: AFP The Jerusalem Post cites unnamed Palestinian media as saying that as many as nine Palestinians have been killed in the attacks, and that several of these are high-ranking figures in the Islamic Holy War. Witnesses tell AP that an apartment block in Gaza and a house in Rafah have been hit. Anticipating Palestinian rocket attacks in response to the airstrikes, Israeli authorities have advised residents living within a four-mile radius of Gaza to stay close to bomb shelters. Guards at a residence in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, 9 May 2023. Photo: Reuters High tension The situation is still very tense, even though the parties signed a ceasefire last week. Then Israel had bombed Gaza after militant Palestinians fired at least 30 rockets. The Palestinian rockets were fired after a prominent member of the Islamic Holy War died in Israeli captivity following a nearly three-month hunger strike. The airstrikes are similar to those in 2022, when Israel bombed locations where leaders of the Islamic Holy War were based. It led to three days of intense attacks on both sides. Israel carries out regular operations in the occupied West Bank. They say they are to break up militant Palestinian networks and prevent future attacks, while the Palestinians see them as an aggravation of the 56-year occupation of lands they want for a future Palestinian state. 105 Palestinians, around half of them militants or alleged attackers, have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem since the start of 2023, according to a tally by the AP news agency.
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