Israel targets Gaza once again with airstrikes

By
AFP
|
Smoke billows from a building in Gaza bombarded by Israeli jets. Photo: AFP
Smoke billows from a building in Gaza bombarded by Israeli jets. Photo: AFP

  • Israel claims Hamas launched incendiary balloons from Palestinian enclave. 
  • Witnesses say Israeli army also fired artillery at northern Gaza. 
  • No one got killed, says medical sources in Palestinian enclave. 


Israel on Monday night launched airstrikes against Gaza, claiming that incendiary balloons from the Palestinian enclave caued fires. 

Blaming Hamas for the balloons, the Israeli army said it had targeted locations belonging to the group that controls the Gaza Strip.

"Overnight, IDF fighter jets struck a Hamas rocket manufacturing workshop, as well as a Hamas military compound in Khan Yunis," the Israeli army claimed in a statement.

"The strikes were in response to Hamas launching incendiary balloons into Israeli territory," the statement further claimed.

Witnesses said that the army had also fired artillery at the north of Gaza.

According to medical sources in the Palestinian enclave, no one was killed.

Earlier in the day, Israeli firefighters had said that incendiary balloons had caused three bushfires at sites close to the Gaza Strip.

Monday's strikes come after six Palestinians broke out of an Israeli prison earlier in the day through a tunnel, triggering a massive manhunt.

Hamas and Israel fought a devastating 11-day conflict in May, the worst between the two sides in years.

Though it ended with an Egypt-brokered ceasefire and a pledge for Qatari aid to ease poverty in the Palestinian enclave, incendiary balloons and occasional border clashes have continued in the months since.