• The leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards says Palestinians are “not alone” in fight against Israel.
• Iran is a big backer of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
• Israel launched a “pre-emptive” operation against Islamic Jihad on Friday, killing one of its commanders.

The leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Saturday that the Palestinians are “not alone” in their fight against Israel, as they faced a second day of air strikes in Gaza.

“Today, all the anti-Zionist jihadi capabilities are on the scene in a united formation working to liberate Jerusalem and uphold the rights of the Palestinian people,” Major General Hossein Salami said in a statement on the Guards’.

“We are with you on this path until the end, and let Palestine and the Palestinians know that they are not alone,” he told the visiting leader of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, Ziad al-Nakhala, during a meeting in Tehran.

Israel has said it launched a “pre-emptive” operation against Islamic Jihad on Friday to avert an imminent attack following days of tensions along the Gaza border.

A senior commander of the group was killed in an air strike on Gaza City on Friday, one of a wave of strikes on the territory.

The Gaza health ministry said a five-year-old girl was among 12 people killed by the Israeli bombardment. More than 80 others have been wounded.

Palestinian militants hit back with a barrage of rocket fire into Israel, in the territory’s worst flare-up since a war last year.

Salami stressed that the Palestinian response showed “a new chapter” has begun and that Israel “will pay another heavy price for the recent crime”.

“The Palestinian resistance is stronger today than in the past,” he said, adding that the militant groups have found “the ability to manage major wars”.

Iran’s foreign ministry condemned Israel’s “brutal attack” on Gaza.

In a statement from his office, President Ebrahim Raisi said that Israel had “once again shown the world that it is occupying and aggressive.”

Iran is a big backer of Islamic Jihad, and while he was there, Nakhala met with Raisi and other officials.

Israel says that Iran sends weapons to militant Palestinian groups in Gaza. Last March, it said that it had stopped two Iranian drones carrying weapons for Gaza.

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