Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides today, Thursday, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.
A closed meeting took place between the two officials, and then a second meeting attended by Israeli and Cypriot officials.
During the meeting, Christodoulides expressed his support for Israel and said, “I am here despite the terrorist attacks, which we strongly condemn,” adding, “I want to send a strong and clear message about the strategic nature of our relationship.”
In turn, Netanyahu said, “We have established together an alliance of democracies in the eastern Mediterranean, of Israel, Cyprus and Greece. And we put our American friends in the circle as well.”
“It is a very stable and promising alliance. We must continue to build it: economically, in terms of our intelligence services, defense and political partnership, as well as in international forums. We welcome this matter and we must continue (making efforts),” he added.
Mutual bombardment
This Thursday, Israel carried out air strikes on the Gaza Strip, from which a new batch of missiles was launched, after targeting another leader in the Islamic Jihad movement at night, who was killed along with two others.
Thus, the death toll in the escalation that began on Tuesday, the most violent since August 2022, rose to 25 on the Palestinian side, including children.
The Israeli army said in a statement today that a fighter jet bombed a site for firing mortar shells belonging to the Islamic Jihad movement in the northern Gaza Strip.
The army had previously confirmed the targeting of Ali Ghali, who is in charge of managing the missile unit in the Islamic Jihad movement, noting that the latter “played an important role in directing and carrying out the missile launches towards Israel, including the recent missile bursts.”
He explained that the operation that took place at dawn was “a joint operation of the IDF and the Shin Bet”, the Israeli General Security.
On the Palestinian side, the al-Quds Brigades affiliated with Islamic Jihad mourned Ali Ghali, “a member of the military council and in charge of the missile unit in the al-Quds Brigades.”
A medical source in Gaza confirmed the killing of Ghali and two other people in an air strike that targeted a residential apartment in Khan Yunis, which also resulted in the injury of others.
The Jihad movement, which Israel, the European Union and the United States consider “terrorist”, told AFP that “a new barrage of rockets was launched in the morning towards Israeli territory.”
The Israeli army indicated that 507 projectiles were launched towards Israeli territory since the start of the escalation, 154 of which were intercepted by the air defense system.
There were no injuries on the Israeli side, according to emergency services.
The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip reported that 25 Palestinians, including children, were killed and 76 others injured, since Tuesday. Among the dead were also three other Islamic Jihad leaders who were targeted by Israel on Tuesday.
mediation
Diplomatically, two identical sources in Islamic Jihad and Hamas told AFP that Egypt had conducted “intense and valuable” contacts with the two movements, “and informed us that it had contacted the Israeli side and requested an immediate cease-fire and a return to calm. Until now, there has been no agreement for calm.”
A source in the Islamic Jihad told AFP that the head of the political department in the Islamic Jihad, Muhammad al-Hindi, will arrive in Cairo today to meet with officials of the General Intelligence Service.
An Israeli official, who preferred not to be named, stated that Egyptian efforts were being made to reach a cease-fire agreement, adding, “We will conduct an assessment of the situation based on actions on the ground and not on statements.”
