ZCZC
BFF-31
ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS-CONFLICT-GAZA
Israel warplanes strike Gaza after rocket fire
JERUSALEM, Oct 25, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Israeli warplanes hit Hamas targets in
the Gaza Strip early on Thursday in response to rocket fire from the
territory into southern Israel, the army said.
The fighter jets targeted a military compound in the northern Gaza Strip
and a training facility and a munitions manufacturing and storage site in the
south, it said in a statement.
Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas said there were no casualties in the strikes.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said the raids were in response to a rocket
fired from Gaza which caused no casualties or damage but which evaded
Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, triggering an inquiry.
It was the first such fire from Gaza since October 17 when a rocket
severely damaged a family home in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba,
prompting some 20 retaliatory air strikes and the temporary suspension of
fuel deliveries to Gaza.
Hamas and its allies disavowed the recent rocket fire blaming fringe groups
bent on sabotaging UN and Egyptian efforts to broker a long-term truce in
return for a relaxation of Israel’s crippling 11-year blockade of the
impoverished territory.
But Israel has vowed repeatedly to hold Hamas to blame for any rocket fire
regardless of who launched it.
“The Hamas terror organisation is responsible for all events transpiring in
the Gaza Strip and emanating from it,” the army said on Thursday.
The latest flare-up comes after months of Palestinian protests along the
Gaza border that have drawn a deadly response from Israeli troops.
The protesters have been demanding an end to Israel’s blockade and the
right of return to land now inside Israel, from which their families were
expelled or fled during the 1948 war that accompanied its creation.
More than 200 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli
fire since the protests began on March. One Israeli soldier has been killed
in the border area over the same period.
The air force on Wednesday struck a position in Gaza used by protesters to
launch incendiary balloons into Israel, the military said.
Palestinian fire kites and balloons have destroyed large areas of Israeli
farmland causing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of crop losses.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1245HRS