Jerusalem:

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday Israel was prepared to “deepen” its Gaza operation if truce talks fail to secure the release of hostages Hamas holds in the Palestinian territory.

Israel is prepared to “make compromises” to get hostages out of Gaza, Gallant said after touring the Rafah area following an Israeli incursion at the Rafah border crossing in the territory’s south.

But “if that option is removed, we will go on and deepen the operation”, he warned in a statement.

Gallant’s comments came after Israeli negotiators arrived in Cairo for the latest effort towards a hostage release and ceasefire in the seven-month-old war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement he had instructed Israel’s delegation to “stand firm on the conditions necessary for the release” of hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack, and on “essential requirements for guaranteeing Israel’s security”.

The new talks come after Hamas announced late Monday it had accepted a ceasefire plan proposed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, and said the ball was now in Israel’s court.

Despite months of shuttle diplomacy, mediators have so far failed to broker a new truce like the week-long ceasefire that saw 105 hostages released last November, the Israelis among them in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Previous negotiation efforts had stalled in part because of Hamas’s demand for a lasting ceasefire and Netanyahu’s vows to crush its remaining fighters in Rafah.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu said he had given the order late Monday to seize Rafah crossing, and that “within hours, our forces raised the Israeli flags at the Rafah crossing and took down the Hamas flags”.

“Seizing the passage in Rafah today is a very important step,” he said — “an important step on the way to destroying the remaining military capabilities of Hamas”.

Netanyahu maintained Tuesday that “this morning we denied Hamas a passage that was essential for establishing its reign of terror in the (Gaza) Strip”.

Gallant indicated that the limited Rafah incursion, launched after Israel ordered Palestinians in the east of the city to evacuate ahead of a long-threatened ground operation, could be lengthy.

“This operation will continue until we eliminate Hamas in the Rafah area and the entire Gaza Strip, or until the first hostage returns,” he said in his statement.

If hostages are not returned, Gallant said Israel would expand its operations “all over the Strip, in the south, in the centre and in the north”.

“Hamas only responds to force, so we will intensify our actions, and the military pressure will result in us crushing … Hamas.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

A massive explosion ripped through a hospital in Gaza, killing at least 500 people on Tuesday. The incident sparked global outrage and demonstrations in several Muslim-majority countries. Israel and Palestine exchanged blame for the incident, which US President Joe Biden denounced while en route to Israel.

While the Israeli army pinned the blame on a “misfired rocket” by Palestine’s Islamic Jihad group, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says Israel was behind the bombing of the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist hospital.

But what is the Islamic Jihad group?

The Beginnings

Designated as a terrorist organisation by the US State Department, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an ally of Hamas, violently opposes the existence of Israel. 

The group’s founders, Fathi Shaqaqi and Abd al-Aziz Awda, were students in Egypt and members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist social movement founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Sometime in the late 1970s the two felt that the Brotherhood was not fully committed to the Palestinian cause. 

Taking inspiration from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini-led Iranian revolution, Shaqaqi and Awda created an offshoot group with the sole objective of militant destruction of the Israeli state. 

In 1981, the Egyptian government exiled PIJ, which had split from the Muslim Brotherhood, to Gaza after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. 

Operations In Gaza 

The PIJ functions as a decentralised, compartmentalised organisation that typically prioritises attacking Israel, while avoiding the prominent social, welfare, and political roles played by other Islamic extremist groups in the region like Hamas, Fatah, or even the Lebanon-based Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

Their first successful strike is thought to have been in Gaza, the killing of an Israeli military police captain in August 1987, a few months before the first Palestinian intifada.

While in Gaza, the Islamic Jihad killed an Israeli military police captain just a few months before the start of the First Intifada in 1987. 

In the same year, they were expelled to Lebanon where the Islamic Jihad built a strong relationship with Hezbollah and even received arms training from Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Two years later, Shaqaqi established the group’s official headquarters in Syria’s Damascus where they continue to operate to this day. 

Relationship With Hamas

Unlike Hamas, the Islamic Jihad does not carry out any form of social service in Gaza nor does it intend to fight for political office or intend to open diplomatic channels with Israel. 

The one thing that is common between the two groups is the fact that both oppose Israel. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have often coordinated militant operations in the Palestinian enclave. 

However, there have been times when Hamas, ironically, has cautioned the Islamic Jihad against attacking Israel. The Islamic Jihad, on most occasions, acts independently. Primarily focused on military confrontations, there have been times when the Islamic Jihad has taken the front seat while Hamas remained on the sidelines during clashes with Israel.

Relationship With Iran 

The Iranian Revolution’s sphere of influence in its first decade was confined to Shi’a groups in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Gulf Emirates. It failed to make headways in countries with a majority Sunni population nor did its fundamentalist ideas entice Islamic militant groups.

While Shaqaqi and Awda drew inspiration from the Iranian Revolution, Iran did not pay it any heed. Ayatollah Khomenei and Iranian leaders remained steadfast in propagating Shi’ite values without focusing on Sunni-dominated nations.

However, a change occurred. In the late 80s, after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Iran decided to export its fundamentalism to countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, and more importantly, Palestine — coinciding with the First Intifada. And after Israel kicked the Islamic Jihad to Lebanon, the group came under direct influence of Iran.

According to the US State Department, it is Iran that funds the Islamic Jihad’s budget, exactly like it reportedly does for Hamas and Hezbollah. The US also blames the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria for providing a safe haven to the group in Damascus. 

Attacks Carried Out By Islamic Jihad 

The Islamic Jihad’s modus operandi includes suicide bombings targetting Israeli civilians and military personnel. 

1987: Killing Of an Israeli military police commander in Gaza

1994: Car bomb attack killing nine and injuring 50 aboard a public bus

1995: Suicide bomb attack killing 18 soldiers and one civilian in ISrael’s Netanya.

1996: Suicide bomb attack at a Tel Aviv shopping mall killing 13 and injuring 75. 

2003: Suicide bomb attack a a Haifa restaurant killing 22 and injuring 60.

Along with other suicide bombings, the Islamic Jihad also works with Hamas to launch rockets into Israel.