Islamic Jihad Vows Retaliation for Israeli Attack
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Palestine’s Islamic Jihad Movement slammed the fresh Israeli threats as a declaration of war, saying the Tel Aviv regime will have to pay the price for a military attack on a tunnel in Gaza that killed 12 members of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas some two weeks ago.
“Israel has killed 12 Palestinians in Gaza and another one in the West (Bank) over the last two weeks… When they kill men of the resistance, and especially from Islamic Jihad, we have no other choice but to punish the occupier, and continue to strengthen the buildup of forces from a conflict,” media reports quoted senior Islamic Jihad official Khaled al-Batash as saying on Sunday.
It came after top Israeli general Yoav Mordechai in a video released in Arabic on Saturday vowed harsh response to any “revenge attack” staged by the Palestinian groups in retaliation for the tunnel attack.
The Islamic Jihad has said, “The threat by the enemy to harm the leadership is a declaration of war and we will deal with them.”
Israel launched the aerial attack on a tunnel in Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, on October 30.
Since 2008, Israel has launched three offensives on the Gaza Strip. The latest one took place in the summer of 2014 and resulted in the deaths of more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 500 children.
The Israeli blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip, in its current form, has been in place since June 2007.
