Israel said earlier in the day that it had launched Operation Defensive Arrow, and Israeli state media, such as Kan, reported that preparations began last week.
Its objective was the assassination of leaders of the Jihad movement, which has been active against Israel in Gaza and the northern West Bank in recent months.
According to “Kan”, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant gave instructions to the heads of the army and security services to draw up assassination plans.
The order came after Palestinian factions fired rockets into southern Israel last week following the death of prominent Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan in Israeli jails after an 87-day strike , noting that he was a Jihad leader.
The exchange of missile fire between the two sides lasted only a few hours, which resulted in a fragile ceasefire agreement, as has been the norm in repeated clashes between the state Jew and factions over the years.
The operation was supposed to take place last Sunday, but it was postponed without Kaan explaining the reasons.
Ben Gvir last to know
The legal adviser gave the green light to the government to proceed with the implementation of the operation without the need to invite the Ministerial Mini-Council for Security and Political Affairs known as the Cabinet, which is generally responsible for giving an order to implement such operations.
This means that a very limited number of Israeli officials were aware of the operation.
“Kan” said the operation was secret and that Israeli government ministers were unaware of it.
The Times of Israel reported that Netanyahu was reluctant to hold a cabinet meeting on security issues, fearing the influence of several far-right ministers could push Israel into a wider conflict with the Palestinians.
He also feared information was leaking from other ministers, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Shin Bet meeting
On Friday, the headquarters of Israel’s domestic intelligence service, the Shin Bet, in Tel Aviv attended a discussion session on the operation, during which the action plan was presented to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Minister of the Galant Defence.
The two agreed to the plan, and the army began preparations for the mission.
The operation was supposed to take place on Sunday evening, but it was not possible to do so, so it was postponed to Tuesday, that is to say at dawn today.
The operation began at 2:15 a.m. Tuesday when an Israeli raid killed Jihad movement leader Khalil al-Bahtini, who the widely reported Walla news site in Israel said was the leader of the Jihad movement. in the north of the country. Gaza region.
Israel accuses Al-Bahtini of being responsible for the attacks against Israel, the last of which took place last month.
Later, Israel launched raids that killed Tariq Ezz El-Din and Jihad Al-Ghannam, and targeted sites of the Jihad movement to which they belong.
previous threats
The assassination of the leaders of the Jihad movement on Tuesday at dawn is not surprising, especially since the leaders of the factions have been repeating since the end of April the Israeli threats to return to the policy of assassinations.
Reports in Israel at the time indicated that the Netanyahu government had made the decision to reintroduce the policy of assassination.
In early April, Ben Gvir called for a return to the policy of assassinations against the leaders of the Palestinian factions in Gaza, in order to restore what he describes as “Israeli deterrence”, according to which it is waning with the repeated firing of rockets from the besieged band in the south of the Jewish state.
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