Home Front Command relaxes restrictions after ceasefire

The Home Front Command relaxed restrictions on southern Israel on Saturday night two hours after a ceasefire between the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel reportedly took effect.

According to the new guidelines, gatherings in open areas of more than 10 people and in buildings of more than 100 people will be banned in communities near the Gaza border from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. Additionally, in that time period, only workplaces with a shelter nearby will be able to open and classes will only take place within shelters.

The woman who was killed by the rocket in Rehovot on Thursday was identified as Inga Avremian, a woman in her 80s, on Friday.

Hamas warned Israel on Friday against continuing Operation Shield and Arrow after the IDF killed a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader.

The terrorist organization warned that "the resistance may widen the line of fire and include hundreds of thousands of Israelis again."

The IDF struck two Palestinian Islamic Jihad command centers in Gaza on Friday, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit reported.

Another Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader has been killed in the IDF's latest operation in the Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon.

Ayeed Alhuseni was the Islamic Jihad's commander of military operations in the Gaza Strip.

He had replaced Khalil Bahatini, who was killed by the IDF the first day of Operation Shield and Arrow. Bahatini had been the organization's commanding officer of the operation in the Gaza Strip.

The IDF slightly increased its attacks on Islamic Jihad in Gaza from around Friday noon until 3:30 p.m. in response to the terror group increasing rocket attacks in the early afternoon against the Beit Shemesh, West Bank and Gaza corridor areas.

Until those rocket attacks, there was an approximately 13-hour-long absence of Islamic Jihad rockets and reduced IDF airstrikes.

With Israel saying that ceasefire talks were off until Islamic Jihad both completely ceases firing rockets (it has twice for about half-a-day each since Wednesday) and drops any conditions, the terror group threatened to continue its rockets through Jerusalem Day on May 19.

Increasing concerns Hamas will join

Though Hamas was still mostly staying out of the fray, there were increasing concerns that a drawn out conflict could force the group to join the fight.

Earlier Friday, a home in Sderot suffered a direct rocket hit.

An operational Iron Dome battery is seen amid barrages of rockets on Israel's South during Operation Shield and Arrow, in Sderot, May 11, 2023 (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

No one was injured in the hit, the Sderot Municipality said, adding that infrastructural damage was caused to the home.

A rocket also landed on the rooftop of an empty home in the Gaza border kibbutz of Nir Am, Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council said. Damage was caused to the home.

Rockets were also simultaneously launched toward Jerusalem and the West Bank area for the first time in Operation Shield and Arrow, which entered its fourth day on Friday.

A rocket fell near the Gush Etzion settlement of Bat Ayin, according to preliminary Israeli reports.

The Gush Etzion Regional Council opened an emergency hotline on Friday for residents in need of assistance or information following the rocket. barrage on the area.

"The sirens and rockets have reached us as well. I ask that our residents follow the instructions given by the IDF Home Front Command," Shlomo Ne'eman, Yesha council chairman, said. "I would also like to show our support for our security forces, the IDF, and encourage the political echelon to continue fighting against the criminal terrorist organizations who have turned Gaza into a hornet's nest of terror." 

IDF strikes Islamic Jihad outposts, rocket launch sites in Gaza

The IDF struck Islamic Jihad outposts and rocket launch sites in airstrikes carried out over the Gaza Strip early on Friday morning.

The IDF has attacked at least 215 Islamic Jihad targets across Gaza since the operation began with the targeted assassinations of three PIJ senior leaders on Tuesday morning.

However, the IDF has not killed any Islamic Jihad leaders since it killed a fifth leader around 4:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Further, the IDF has not mobilized the reserves in any large numbers to threaten a ground invasion – as it did in 2008-2009, 2014 and 2021.

Netanyahu: Operation will continue for as long as necessary

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Mossad Director David Barnea held a security assessment Friday afternoon from Gallant’s home where he was mourning the recent death of his mother (unrelated to the conflict.)

The Israeli military will continue its operation in Gaza for "as long as necessary," Netanyahu said in comments issued following the situational assessment on Thursday. Netanyahu instructed security forces to "continue to exact a heavy price from the Islamic Jihad for its aggression against the citizens of Israel."

On Thursday night, the first Israeli victim of the barrage of Islamic Jihad rockets from Gaza was killed in Rehovot with reports of over a dozen newly injured Israelis, a large number of them from Rehovot. 

This latest round of conflict between Israel and Islamic Jihad had its roots in rockets that Israel faced on multiple fronts over the Passover holiday as well as over 100 rockets which the terror group fired at Israel over May 2-3.

Islamic Jihad said it fired the May 2-3 rockets as revenge for one of its top leaders dying from a hunger strike while in Israeli detention.

Although the IDF responded mildly to Islamic Jihad’s rocket attacks back on May 2-3, Netanyahu and Gallant already on May 2 ordered Israel’s security forces to prepare a much more substantial attack for the near future. 

That attack was rolled out overnight between Monday and Tuesday with the killing of three top Islamic Jihad officials.

The Jerusalem Post learned on Thursday that those original officials who were killed were even higher up in the organization than the Islamic Jihad officials killed on Thursday.

For the first time in Operation Shield and Arrow, rocket sirens sounded in the West Bank, Gush Etzion and localities in the Judean mountains near Jerusalem at noon on Friday.

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit said that the Israeli military is striking Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip amid a heavy barrage of rockets launched toward Efrat, Beitar Ilit, Beit Shemesh, Gefen, Tirosh, Gva'ot, Har Gilo, Neve Daniel, Tzur Hadassah, Rosh Tzurim and Kfar Etzion.

Ceasefire negotiations have ended following Friday's rocket barrage at Israel's South and, for the first time in Operation Shield and Arrow, toward the West Bank and the Jerusalem area, a senior Israeli source told Maariv.

The Prime Minister's Office stressed that the decision to cease talks with Islamic Jihad came on Friday morning, rather than as a direct response to the rocket barrage toward the Jerusalem area.

A home in Sderot suffered a direct rocket hit following a heavy Islamic Jihad barrage from the Gaza Strip, the southern Israeli city's municipality confirmed on Friday.

No one was injured in the hit, the Sderot Municipality said, adding that infrastructural damage was caused to the home.

Rockets were also simultaneously launched toward Jerusalem and the West Bank area for the first time in Operation Shield and Arrow, which entered its fourth day on Friday.

The Iron Dome air defense system suffered a technical malfunction on Thursday evening, allowing a Gaza rocket to inflict a direct hit on a Rehovot building killing one person, IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari revealed on Friday morning.

While the air defense system fired as intended, it failed to intercept the Islamic Jihad missile that directly hit the apartment building in Rehovot.

Further, Hagari noted that the rocket launched by Gaza landed on the building at a "complex angle," causing the death of one and injuring eight more.