The Israeli military launched a series of air strikes on Palestinian positions in Gaza on Tuesday after a barrage of rocket fire from the Strip. At least one base belonging to Hamas and four for Islamic Jihad were struck by Israel, security sources told AFP news agency. The strikes came after the Israeli army said Palestinian fighters were behind a “barrage of projectiles” fired from Gaza into southern Israel.
Military officials said the state’s Iron Dome aerial defence system intercepted some of the 30 rockets and mortar rounds that were fired into Israel. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the firing of the rockets. “No country in the world would or should accept such threats to its civilian population. Neither do we,” Emmanuel Nahshon, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, wrote on Twitter. Just hours after the Israeli strikes on Gaza, sirens were heard in southern Israel, the Israeli Haaretz daily reported. Israeli forces said on Twitter that it had intercepted “several launches”.
The incident comes a day after Israeli troops killed a Palestinian who allegedly approached Gaza’s border with Israel, and two days after Israeli tank fire killed three people in an attack on a military observation post belonging to Islamic Jihad fighters. The attack comes after Islamic Jihad vowed to take revenge after its members were killed.
An Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza said on Tuesday “as long as there is occupation, resistance is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people”. “Israel keeps up with its aggression, we stick to the two options: popular protests and resistance responding to the Zionist aggression,” Khaled al-Batsh told The Associated Press.
More than two million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal enclave. Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but, citing security concerns, maintains tight control of its land and sea borders, which has reduced its economy to a state of collapse.
Egypt also restricts movement in and out of Gaza on its border. Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been stalled since 2014 and Israeli settlements in occupied territory Palestinians seek for a state have expanded. Gaza experienced its most significant conflict in 2014, when at least 2,251 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians, were killed. At least 66 Israeli soldiers and six civilians were also killed.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
