Israel’s assassination of a senior Palestinian resistance commander has opened the floodgates of reaction, with Palestinians and their allies warning of strong repercussions and Israel-friendly parties sufficing to voice “concern” about the escalation.
Baha Abu al-Ata, 42, the commander of Al-Quds Brigades — the Palestinian resistance movement of Islamic Jihad’s military wing — and his wife were killed during an Israeli aerial assault against their home in Gaza City in the blockaded Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
The Israeli army confirmed the airstrike afterwards, saying it had taken place against Gaza’s Shejaiya area.
The operation, it added, had been recommended by the Chief of Staff and the Shin Bet domestic security service, and approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
An Islamic Jihad leader, Khaled al-Batsh, addressed crowds during a funeral ceremony for Ata soon after the targeted killing, warning that Netanyahu, Israeli forces, and illegal settlers in the occupied territories would pay “a hefty price for these crimes.”
“Today, we tell our people, the only option available is to face [this aggression],” he added.
Spokesman for Islamic Jihad’s fellow Gaza-based resistance movement of Hamas, Hazem Qassem, called Israel’s targeted killing a “continuation of Israeli aggression towards the Palestinian people.”
“Our people are being targeted all over, inside and outside Palestine,” he told Al Jazeera Arabic. “The attack reflects Israel’s unsuccessful tactics…Assassinations cannot and will not put an end to resistance, and are not enough to stop Palestinians from supporting the cause,” Qassem said.
“After every attack, the will of the resistance grows and becomes more persistent,” he stressed, adding that Hamas was coordinating a response to the “occupation’s crimes.”
Meanwhile, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority condemned Ata’s assassination as a “hideous crime” in a statement published on the official Palestinian News Agency WAFA.
The Authority “called on the international community to provide protection for the Palestinian people everywhere.”
The secretary-general of the umbrella group of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Saeb Erekat, similarly condemned the assassination, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported. He said Israel “bears full responsibility for the consequences of this crime.”
Yemen: Ata’s killing ‘treacherous, cowardly’
Meanwhile, the Political Bureau of the Yemeni popular defense movement of Ansarullah, which has invariably voiced support for the Palestinian cause, called the assassination “treacherous and cowardly” and hailed al-Ata as a “heroic commander,” Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported.
It lamented that Israel would not have dared to stage the attack, had it not been emboldened by some Arab and Persian Gulf regimes’ rush over the recent years to normalize relations with the occupying regime.
The movement has been defending Yemen against a 2015-present invasion led by Saudi Arabia, one of the Arab states, which has been trying rapprochement with Israel.
Ansarullah also condemned another attack by the Israeli regime against Akram al-Ajouri, another Islamic Jihad figure, in Syria. That assault failed to assassinate the resistance figure, but claimed the life of his son.
The Yemeni group also praised the Palestinian resistance fighters for their launching a retaliatory rocket barrage into the occupied lands after the assassination, and their defense of the Palestinian “dignity, freedom, independence, and sanctities.”
It also reiterated the Yemeni people’s alignment with the Palestinian resistance in all the steps and deterrent measures they take against “this brutal Zionist arrogance,” al-Masirah added.
Even Arab members of the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) slammed Netanyahu for giving the green light for the operation, saying he had brought about another bout of escalation in Gaza to ensure “his political survival.”
“The man who lost consecutive elections will leave the ground burned in a desperate attempt to stay in his position,” Ayman Odeh, one legislator, said on Twitter. “For a decade, he (Netanyahu) worked every morning to prolong the occupation and undermine prospects for peace and this is what he did today as well,” he added.
Lawmaker Walid Taha warned that Netanyahu’s policy of escalation would drag the region into a “real disaster.”
“What is happening threatens the security of the entire region and the lives of millions of innocent people in Gaza Strip,” he said.”Israel is in danger as a result of Netanyahu’s aggressive policies.”
Withholding any comment critical of the targeting killing, the European Union(EU),meanwhile, only called for a “rapid and complete de-escalation.”
The bloc even blasted the tit-for-tat rocket launches from Gaza, saying, it was “totally unacceptable and must immediately stop.”
The tone was echoed by German Ambassador to Israel Susanne Wasum-Rainer, who limited her reactions to expression of concern about the safety of Israelis in the aftermath of the assassination.
Wasum-Rainer said she was following “with great concern the evolving situation after sirens heard this morning in various cities in Israel, and collecting all relevant pieces of information.” She added that she hoped “that there won’t be injuries. Stay safe.”
Embassies of some other Israel-aligned states, including those of Spain, Poland, Malta, and the Greek Cyprus, similarly urged caution in light of the retaliatory rocket attacks.
The United Kingdom also simply issued a travel advisory.
