TULKARM, Oct 24: Israeli troops killed a top militant in the Bank on Monday, while Gaza gunmen fired several rockets towards Israel in a flare-up of violence that threatened to unravel an eight-month ceasefire.
Israeli troops shot dead Islamic Jihad commander Loai Assadi during a raid in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. He was the most senior Palestinian militant to be killed since the start of the truce in March.
Islamic Jihad gunmen in northern Gaza said they fired 25 rockets into Israel in retaliation. There were no casualties. The army said several landed in open fields in Israel and that they responded with artillery fire into Gaza.
Militant groups in Gaza, including Islamic Jijad and Hamas, stopped firing rockets last month after a similar flare-up in violence in which Israel killed several gunmen in retaliation for rocket and mortar bomb salvoes.
Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge the killing of Assadi, 26, who Israel had accused of masterminding suicide bombings that killed 10 Israelis since the truce was declared in February.
The renewed violence threatened to derail the frayed ceasefire and undermine hopes that Israel’s Gaza pullout last month, after 38 years of occupation, could revive peacemaking.
The army said soldiers raiding the town of Tulkarm targeted Assadi and another militant, Majed al-Ashkar, killed on Sunday, because they had been planning further attacks.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s office said in a statement the West Bank killing marked an escalation in violence that threatened to undermine Abbas’s efforts to bring calm and security.
