https://www.jns.org/opinion/netanyahus-bullseye-on-iran/
Of all world leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been the most vociferous in warning of the danger to the Jewish state and the rest of the world posed by Tehran in general and by its race to obtain nuclear weapons in particular.
(November 12, 2019 / JNS) The Israeli Air Force conducted a strike in Gaza in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, killing Islamic Jihad senior commander Baha Abu al-Ata. According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the bloodthirsty Palestinian terrorist, responsible for multiple rocket barrages on Israel from Gaza, was a “ticking time bomb.”
In other words, his death was a necessary step in preventing a series of imminent terrorist attacks on innocent Israelis. It was also a message not only to Islamic Jihad, but to Hamas—ruler of the terrorist enclave—that recent Israeli threats about a major military campaign in Gaza being inevitable were not empty. As Netanyahu has been emphasizing for the past few months, Hamas can’t keep blaming Islamic Jihad for launching missiles as a way of avoiding an Israeli ground invasion, such as “Operation Protective Edge” in the summer of 2014.
The trouble with the hit on Abu al-Ata, of course, is that it sparked a heavy—albeit anticipated—round of revenge attacks, sending Israelis across the south and center of the country into bomb shelters, and prompting the Israel Defense Forces to launch further airstrikes on targets in Gaza, among them an Islamic Jihad training facility and underground facility for the manufacture and storage of weapons.
The Home Front Command, which clearly was given a heads up prior to the targeted killing and the likely response it would elicit, is treating the situation seriously, keeping a wide geographical berth on high alert, and out of school and many public buildings.