Israeli jets strike Gaza after shells fired at soldiers
12 mortar attacks on IDF positions, 4 retaliatory airstrikes on Hamas sites since Tuesday; no immediate reports of injuries in latest incident
The Israeli Air Force on Friday carried out raids on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for mortar fire directed at Israeli soldiers earlier in the day, on the fourth day of tit-for-tat exchanges of fire between Hamas and Israel around the coastal enclave.
There were no immediate reports of injuries in the fourth series of airstrikes since Wednesday.
Mortars were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli soldiers on Friday morning, causing no injuries in what the army said was the 12th incident in three days. The soldiers were operating near the southern edge of the coastal enclave, according to the Israel Defense Forces. The Israeli jets subsequently targeted a Hamas site in southern Gaza, according to the army.
“The repeated attacks against the IDF activities to locate and destroy cross-border tunnels will not be tolerated. Hamas’s diabolical plan to infiltrate into Israeli communities must be stopped. The IDF has the obligation and a duty to safeguard the people in southern Israel and the sovereignty of our borders, we will continue to do so,” said IDF spokesman Peter Lerner in a statement.
Palestinian media reports on Friday afternoon said Israel and Hamas reached a truce agreement, brokered by Egypt, which would go into effect immediately. But the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Major General Yoav (Poly) Mordechai, stressed that despite reports, no such agreement had been reached.
“The army intends to maintain its activities against Hamas as it continues to breach Israeli sovereignty and build tunnels,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday morning was set to convene the high-level security cabinet to discuss the escalation in violence, according to Israel Radio.
Friday was the fourth day in a row in which IDF troops on the border came under mortar fire, as troops worked to unearth cross-border underground passages from the Gaza Strip. No troops have thus far been injured in the attacks, although some engineering vehicles have been damaged, according to the army.
On Thursday, a Palestinian woman was killed when Israeli tank shells hit her home east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the southern city’s Nasser Hospital. The woman was identified by the hospital as Zeina al-Amour, 54.
Palestinian media also reported that a number of people were injured in a series of Israeli airstrikes in the area of Rafah on Thursday, also in the southern Gaza Strip. The IAF confirmed its aircraft hit four military posts belonging to Hamas, the de facto rulers of the Palestinian enclave, Thursday afternoon.
Also Thursday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned Hamas that Israel would not tolerate any attempts to disrupt the lives of its citizens.
“Terrorist elements in the Gaza Strip need to know that if they try to disrupt our lives, they will be delivered a severe blow,” he said at a service to mark the end of Holocaust Remembrance Day. “We will not tolerate a return to a routine of shooting and attempts to harm our civilians and soldiers. We will take firm action with an iron fist, as we have in the past few days, against the terrorist organizations in the Strip, led by Hamas, which is responsible for the shooting and incidents in Gaza.”
Earlier in the day, the IDF revealed that it had discovered another Hamas attack tunnel burrowing into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. It was the second such tunnel discovered in a month. The second tunnel, which is slated to be destroyed in the coming days, is 28 meters (90 feet) deep and was located just a few kilometers from the location of another tunnel discovered and destroyed last month, the army said.
Despite the increased tension along the border with Gaza in recent weeks, the years since the 2014 conflict, known as Operation Protective Edge, have been the quietest in over a decade, in terms of rocket fire and attacks coming from the coastal enclave.
Since the discovery of the first attack tunnel last month, the IDF and the Israeli government have stressed there are no indications of an imminent large-scale conflict with the Hamas terrorist organization.
Hamas has similarly voiced through proxies that it does not wish to renew conflict with the Jewish state at this point in time.
AFP contributed to this report.
