Hamas: Israel ‘fully accountable’ for any escalation in fighting

Gaza’s Hamas rulers said Monday that it holds Israel “fully accountable” for any escalation following a day in which Israel carried out a number of airstrikes against Hamas positions in the Strip after a rocket attack.

Israel’s airstrikes and tank shelling came after a rocket was fired into Israel from Gaza in the morning and soldiers patrolling the border came under fire later in the day. No injuries were reported.

“We hold Israel fully accountable for the repercussions of the latest escalation in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said, accusing Israel of carrying out a “policy of aggression” against the residents of the Gaza Strip.

Qassem also called on “international and regional agencies to curb the aggression of the occupation.”

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group also condemned Monday’s airstrikes, with its spokesman Ahmad al-Moudalal warning that “the continued Zionist aggression against Gaza cannot pass without the occupation paying a price.”

Tensions started Monday morning when a rocket fired from the northern Gaza Strip struck an open field in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, just south of the coastal city of Ashkelon, but caused no injuries or damage.

Within minutes of the rocket impact, an Israel Defense Forces tank fired at, and destroyed, a Hamas position in the northwestern Gaza Strip.

A few hours later, Israeli aircraft struck three more Hamas sites.

On Monday afternoon, an IDF tank shelled a Hamas site in the central Strip after troops reported they came under fire along the security fence near Kibbutz Kissufim in southern Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — speaking from London, where he was meeting with UK Prime Minister Theresa May — said that Israel will not tolerate a “drip-drip [of rocket fire]” from the Gaza Strip.

“My policy is to respond strongly to any rocket fire,” Netanyahu said. “We are firm in this response.”

The Monday rocket strike from Gaza came two days after a top explosives expert for Hamas’s armed wing was killed in a mysterious explosion.

Israel sees Hamas, which seized control of the Strip some 10 years ago, as responsible for any rocket fire emanating from the Gaza Strip.

Earlier in the morning, Palestinian media reported that four Israeli engineering vehicles had crossed the border fence and cleared the buffer zone surrounding the Gaza Strip of obstructions.

On two occasions since the summer, Israeli forces carried out waves of dozens of strikes against Gaza in retaliation for rocket attacks, a deterrent method seen as connected to Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s hard-line stance toward Hamas.

Dov Lieber and Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.