Israel-Palestine updates: Israel strikes target Gaza, Lebanon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not in a position to deal with an escalation at the moment, says Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem.

“He has too many problems within his own government. He has a bad relationship with his defence minister who he tried to fire but is still working.

“He also has a bad relationship with security officials who had warned that all of the political manoeuvrings that happened around the judicial reform would have an impact on security. And he also has bad relations with many Israelis at large,” she said.

Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to the UK, says the West should hold Israel to account over its attacks on Gaza and on worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

“Israel is in violation of every single provision of international law,” Zomlot told Al Jazeera, adding that Israel is also in violation of the sanctity of mosques.

Calling out what he called “the West’s duplicity, selectivity and hypocrisy”, Zomlot said. “Can you imagine if armed soldiers storm a synagogue or a church, what the international reaction would be? Why has Israel been put above the law? Why the Israeli exceptionalism for decades?”

Political observers say that Israel is most likely not looking to escalate the situation along its border with Lebanon.

“Israel wants to respond but doesn’t want a wide-scale war and doesn’t want to involve Hezbollah in a war,” Wassail Awada, a political analyst based in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera.

“There are many reasons [to this] among them its domestic troubles – and Israel doesn’t war to disrupt its of production of gas,” he said.

Jalal Abukhater, a Palestinian writer and activist from Jerusalem, has said Israel that Israel has been using “extreme, brutal force on unarmed worshippers” during this week’s raids at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“It’s just incredible the fact that they are willing to send [armed] forces to kick out worshippers in such an ugly way,” he told Al Jazeera from occupied East Jerusalem.

“This would be condemned all across the world. It’s like a Midnight Mass getting attacked by the military of a foreign occupation army. It was unsettling and unacceptable in every way.”

The 28-year-old also reflected on the age limits imposed by Israeli police that prohibit Palestinian men under the age of 40 from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“The imposition of such age restrictions is of course difficult to accept, but at the same time it is the reality of the brutal occupation that rules over us through force,” he said.

Hundreds of Jordanians have taken to the streets of Amman following prayers to condemn Israeli raids at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Carrying banners and placards, the protesters chanted anti-Israeli occupation slogans.

Earlier in the week, Israeli police attacked Palestinian worshippers, arresting and removing hundreds of people from the compound and drawing global condemnation.

Russia has called on Israel, the Palestinians and Lebanon to end the “escalation” of violence, saying it was “deeply” concerned.

“We call on the parties involved in the conflict to refrain from confrontational steps, to act in the interests of preventing further escalation, ending violence and restoring a sustainable ceasefire,” the foreign ministry said.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem has said in a tweet that the resistance is “vigilant” after Thursday’s exchange of fire over the Lebanon-Israel border.

Israel’s military hit sites in Lebanon and Gaza early on Friday in retaliation for rocket attacks it blamed on Hamas.

Iran’s foreign ministry has condemned Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Gaza, and called for action by international bodies, state media reported.

Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the ministry “strongly condemned the attacks … as a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and a gross violation of international law and human rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation, and called for an effective response by … world bodies”, state media said.

Israel has called on the UN Security Council to issue a condemnation against Lebanon and Hamas for recent rocket fire against Israel.

Israel blamed the Palestinian group Hamas for firing dozens of rockets at Israel from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip since Thursday. They caused damage but no serious injuries.

The Israeli military then carried out air raids against targets in southern Lebanon and Gaza.

Israel’s foreign ministry said it reached out to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and called for condemnation from the UNSC.

The French foreign ministry has been making efforts to ensure that the situation between Lebanon and Israel does not escalate further, Israeli media have reported.

The reports came after Israel launched overnight air attacks on south Lebanon and the Gaza Strip in response to a barrage of rockets from both territories on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Egypt was mediating between Israel and Hamas to pacify the situation along the Israeli fence with the Gaza Strip, according to the reports.

France has promised “unwavering” support for “Israel’s security and Lebanon’s stability and sovereignty” after Israel responded with strikes to rockets launched by the Palestinian group Hamas from positions inside Lebanon.

Paris called on “all parties to show maximum restraint and avoid any action liable to lead to an escalation”, foreign ministry spokesman Francois Delmas said, reiterating France’s “strong condemnation of the indiscriminate rocket fire that targeted Israeli territory from Gaza and southern Lebanon”.

Israeli settlers have launched attacks on Palestinians’ vehicles at the Israeli army’s Beit El checkpoint.

Videos shared on social media showed Israeli settlers heckling Palestinian drivers and blocking off the northern entrance into Ramallah.

Watch: Army-backed Israeli colonizers attack Palestinians' vehicles near Beit El checkpoint, north of Ramallah, this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/rznT69frnz

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) April 7, 2023

The two Israeli settlers who were killed in a shooting attack in the occupied West Bank were sisters in their 20s, according to Israeli media.

The third victim, a 45-year-old woman who was critically injured in the attack, is their mother. She is a resident of the illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat, south of Jerusalem.

It is unlikely tensions between Hezbollah and Israel will escalate following air attacks on southern Lebanon, director of The Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs Sami Nader has said.

“The main players, Hezbollah on the Lebanese side and Israel … have no interest in escalation. It’s true the Netanyahu government is trying to export its common domestic crisis [protests against judicial reforms] … to the external danger that is represented by Hamas or by Hezbollah, but within limits,” he said from Beirut, adding that a full-fledged war could jeopardise “the very existence of the Israeli government”.

As for Hezbollah, Nader said, another war between the Iran-backed group and Israel would lead to “very damaging consequences” for the economy and the Lebanese people, including Hezbollah’s own constituency.

Israel’s military launched air attacks on southern Lebanon and Gaza following rocket fire from these areas, which came after Israeli raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.

Turkey’s defence minister, Hulusi Akar, has denounced the overnight Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

“Israel carried out indiscriminate attacks on the Gaza Strip last night using disproportionate force. We strongly condemn these attacks,” Akar told reporters in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

“This aggressive attitude, which ignores human rights and universal values, further increases tension in the region. It is clear that these attacks will harm regional peace,” he said.

The Israeli army’s chief of staff, Herzl Halevi, has ordered the mobilisation of reserve forces, with an emphasis on air defences and the air force reserves.

Halevi’s decision came after he convened a situation assessment meeting following the escalation of tensions on Israel’s borders and the deadly shooting attack in the occupied West Bank, reported Israeli media.

Halevi ordered the strengthening of defence efforts in the army’s central command and the continuity of a search operation for the perpetrators behind the deadly shooting, an Israeli army spokesperson said.

Daniel Levy of the US/Middle East Project, says the Netanyahu-led government is likely to be more “aggressive” than the previous Israeli governments.

“I think the dynamic of this government is to accelerate a more aggressive approach to Palestinians … that means more displacement, more attempts to remove Palestinians, more attempts to double down on what international human rights organisations have called an apartheid regime,” he said from London.

Buildings, including a hospital, in a residential neighbourhood in the besieged Gaza Strip have been damaged following Israeli air raids overnight, Al Jazeera’s Youmna ElSayed reported.

“Homes of people [in Tuffah] have been partially or severely destroyed. Also nearby the children’s hospital Adura was also partially damaged from the strikes,” she added.

Israeli settler groups have called for demonstrations at several locations across the occupied West Bank to protest against the deadly shooting attack that killed two Israelis and injured another at the intersection near the illegal Israeli settlement of Hamra.

Israeli media reported that the protests were expected to be held over the next few hours near the illegal settlement of Beit El, in the northern Jordan Valley, and near Huwara – a Palestinian town that has been the focus of Israeli military raids and a settler rampage in recent weeks.