The Israeli military on Thursday accused Palestinian Islamic Jihad of killing four Gaza civilians with failed rocket launches.
The four were killed in separate incidents on Wednesday as the terror group fired more than 500 rockets at Israel. According to the Israel Defense Forces, 108 of those launches failed, with the rockets coming down inside the Gaza Strip.
In one of the cases, a rocket landed in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, killing 16-year-old Rami Shadi Hamdan and 51-year-old Ahmed Muhammad al-Shabaki, according to the IDF.
Other failed launches killed 10-year-old Lin Belal Abd al-Salam Loh and 16-year-old Vizen Juda Aliyan.
During a previous military operation against PIJ, in August 2022, the terror group fired around 1,000 rockets, of which 120 misfired. Fourteen Palestinians were killed by misfired rockets, leading to widespread anger in Gaza against the terror group.
The IDF published a video on Thursday morning showing PIJ rockets falling inside Gaza.
“We are fighting against a terrorist organization that also endangers the lives of the residents of the Gaza Strip,” said IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari.
The IDF also revealed on Thursday that an airstrike on PIJ assets in the Gaza Strip was called off so as not to put at risk two children identified in the area at the last moment.
Hamas and PIJ have long been known to build and store terrorist infrastructure in, around and under schools, hospitals, mosques and other civilian sites in Gaza, to shield its assets from Israeli strikes and from which to launch missile attacks against Israeli population centers.