Last Updated: February 01, 2023, 22:23 IST
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Image: Reuters)
The launch, which was not immediately claimed by any armed group in the Israeli-blockaded territory, came after seven civilians were shot dead outside a synagogue in annexed-east Jerusalem on the Jewish Sabbath last Friday
Israel intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza Wednesday, the army said, in the latest outbreak of unrest that came hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the region urging calm.
The launch, which was not immediately claimed by any armed group in the Israeli-blockaded territory, came after seven civilians were shot dead outside a synagogue in annexed-east Jerusalem on the Jewish Sabbath last Friday.
That attack was the deadliest targeting Israeli civilians in more than a decade and was celebrated by many Palestinians in Gaza and across the occupied West Bank, where bloodshed is also rising.
Last week, Israeli forces killed 10 people in a raid in the Jenin refugee camp. Israel said Islamic Jihad militants were the target of the operation.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, and Islamic Jihad both fired rockets at Israel after Thursday’s raid. Israel launched retaliatory air strikes, with Hamas and Islamic Jihad vowing further action.
The army said “one rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip” on Wednesday and was “intercepted” by Israel’s air defence system.
The Israeli army said sirens sounded in the city of Sderot and other areas close to Gaza.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the incident.
Blinken left the region late Tuesday after meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the West Bank.
The US has no contact with Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organisation.
The top US diplomat had urged both sides to take “urgent steps” to restore calm.
The year 2022 was the deadliest in the West Bank since the United Nations started tracking fatalities in the occupied territory in 2005.
In January, the conflict killed 35 Palestinian adults and children — including attackers, militants and civilians — as well as the six Israeli civilians, including a child, and one Ukrainian, killed on Friday.
Blinken said he was leaving senior staff behind in the region, in hopes of implementing “constructive ideas” to stem the fighting.
“What we’re seeing now for Palestinians is a shrinking horizon of hope, not an expanding one, and that too, we believe, needs to change,” Blinken said in Ramallah on Tuesday.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas told Blinken that Israel was “responsible for what is happening today”.
Blinken’s Israel visit was also part of US President Joe Biden administration’s effort to engage with the new Israeli government, led by veteran hawk Benjamin Netanyahu.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)
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