After rocket fire, Israel hits 2 Hamas targets in Gaza; mother and baby said killed

Israeli Air Force jets struck at two Hamas weapons manufacturing facilities in the northern Gaza Strip early Sunday, following two rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli towns and clashes with IDF troops on the Israel-Gaza border throughout Friday and Saturday, the army said.

Palestinian reports confirmed attacks on “several targets” in the Strip. Gaza officials said a woman, 30, and her two-year-old daughter were killed when an explosion from a targeted Hamas site caused the collapse of a nearby home. Three others, including a 15-year-old youth, were wounded, according to Reuters.

The collapsed building was located in the Zeitoun neighborhood in the northern Strip, the Walla news site reported.

The Iron Dome missile defense system shot down a rocket over the Hof Ashkelon region in southern Israel Saturday night. No injuries or damage were reported in the attack.

“The IDF holds Hamas responsible for any act of aggression from the Gaza Strip,” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement. “This weekend we have seen clear incitement encouraging the breach of Israel’s sovereignty, violent confrontation against Israelis” and threats to residents of southern Israel, the statement added. “The IDF will continue to act, preempt and defeat those [who] plot to harm the civilians of Israel.”

Air raid sirens sounded multiple times in southern Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip late on Saturday night following a second day of deadly clashes between IDF troops and Palestinians along the border.

Two Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli forces in clashes in the Khan Younis area of the Israel-Gaza border, Palestinian media said; seven alestinians were reported killed in clashes at the border on Friday.

On Saturday evening, some 70 Palestinians successfully infiltrated into Israel through the border fence.

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IDF troops intercepted the Gazans and turned most of them back. Five attempted to flee the soldiers and were shot at and arrested, Israel Radio said.

On Friday night, a rocket fired from Gaza exploded in the Eshkol region in southern Israel. No injuries or damage were reported.

Hamas’s Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh on Friday called for “the strengthening and increasing of the intifada… It is the only path that will lead to liberation.”

Concerned by the escalating violence in the Hamas-controlled Strip, Israeli officials deployed additional Iron Dome anti-rocket batteries in Beersheba and Ofakim on Saturday.