IDF officer moderately wounded by grenade during Gaza riots
Army says soldiers fired and hit assailants; Palestinians say 15-year-old killed in clashes; 2 soldiers lightly injured in crash while battling fires near border
An IDF officer was moderately wounded Friday afternoon when a grenade was hurled at him by Palestinian assailants during clashes at the Gaza border fence, the army reported Friday night.
The military said soldiers fired back at the attackers and identified hitting them. The officer was rushed to Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Center and has family was notified.
It was the most serious attack on Israeli forces in over three months of border protests, during which time soldiers have on several occasions been targeted by Gazans with gunfire and bombs.
Israel has long accused Hamas of using the weekly border demonstrations as cover to carry out attacks against Israel.
Earlier the Hamas-run health ministry said a 15-year-old Palestinian was killed during the clashes with the Israeli army along the Gaza border.
It was not clear whether that incident was tied to the attack that wounded the officer.
The Israeli military said thousands took part in the demonstrations, and that soldiers were attacked with grenades, bombs, Molotov cocktails and rocks. Troops responded with less-lethal means and fired live rounds in certain cases, including at one person who tried to cut through the security fence.
Gaza officials said 220 others were hurt in the riots. Most were treated at the scene, while several dozen were taken to hospital. Friday’s violence was held under the banner of “Identifying with Khan al-Ahmar,” a West Bank Bedouin village whose planned demolition by Israel is being debated at the High Court.
Also Friday, two soldiers were lightly injured in a car crash near the Gaza border in the afternoon when a utility trailer connected to their vehicle overturned. The soldiers were taking part in efforts to put out a large fire caused by an incendiary kite at Kibbutz Or Haner.
Firefighters said they managed to get the blaze under control, with the help of several teams and four firefighting planes.
Officials said 15 separate fires had erupted in the Gaza periphery since the morning due to incendiary kites and balloons. All were brought under control.
Since March 30, weekly clashes have taken place on the Gaza border, with Israel accusing Hamas of using the demonstrations as cover to carry out attacks and attempt to breach the security fence. The “March of Return” protests have also seen Palestinians fly airborne incendiary devices toward Israeli territory, sparking hundreds of fires in southern Israel and causing millions of shekels in estimated damages.
The Israeli army has reportedly notified Hamas in recent days that if the incendiary kite and balloon attacks from the Gaza Strip don’t cease, Israel will respond with major military action.
The threat comes amid a period of increased tension between Israel and the Gaza-ruling terror group. On Monday, Israel announced it was shutting down the Kerem Shalom border crossing — the Strip’s main crossing for commercial goods — in response to the endless stream of incendiary and explosive kites and balloons that have been flown into southern Israel, sparking fires that have burned thousands of acres of land and caused millions of shekels in damages. Humanitarian aid and other essentials were still being allowed through the crossing.
The IDF has sought to avoid an escalation of hostilities on the southern front despite the attacks, but according to the Haaretz daily, the political pressure to act has been building as the economic and psychological harm caused by the fires takes its toll.
Israeli officials have conveyed this to Hamas through an intermediary, and said a significant Israeli response was inevitable if the current situation continued, the paper reported.
The army is now examining options for a significant and painful military response against Hamas that would be pinpoint enough not to spark a full-fledged war, the report said.
Friday’s report comes a day after an Israeli drone fired two missiles toward a group of Palestinians flying incendiary balloons into southern Israel from the northern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian media.
This was the second such airstrike in less than 24 hours.
The IDF confirmed that one of its aircraft fired at a cell that had launched balloons toward Israel from northern Gaza. No injuries were reported in the airstrike, which the official Palestinian Wafa news outlet said occurred near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
طائرات الاستطلاع الاسرائيلية تطلق صاروخين صوب أراض زراعية في بيت حانون شمالي قطاع غزة pic.twitter.com/6kDwdyMjw9
— وكالة شهاب للأنباء (@ShehabAgency) July 12, 2018
Multiple Palestinian news outlets, including Wafa, reported that Israel conducted two strikes on Thursday, one near Beit Hanoun and a second east of the city of Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip.
An IDF spokesperson denied the Palestinian reports, saying he was “only familiar with one airstrike.”
The southern Israeli Eshkol regional council reported that a number of incendiary and booby-trapped balloons had been flown into the area throughout Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, incendiary kites and balloons sparked 19 fires of varying sizes in Israel, according to local government officials. Fifteen of them occurred in the Eshkol region, which abuts the southern Gaza Strip. The other four occurred in the Sha’ar Hanegev region, which lies to the northeast of the coastal enclave.
In response, the Israeli military conducted an airstrike against a group of Palestinians it said was launching incendiary balloons toward Israel from the southern Gaza Strip, east of the city of Rafah. There, too, no injuries were reported.
After shuttering Kerem Shalom, the army said humanitarian aid, notably food and medicine, would still be allowed into Gaza, but would require special permission from the military liaison, Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rokon, to the Palestinians.
The military said the closure would continue so long as Palestinians persist in launching incendiary kites and balloons into Israel.
