Israel has said he carried out fresh air forays into the Gaza Strip in response to three suspected rockets fired from the embattled Palestinian enclave.
No victims were reported in the attacks late on Sunday. That took place amid intense tensions over Israel’s widely criticized plan to illegally annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian media said an Israeli warplane attacked a position belonging to Hamas, the group that manages the Gaza Strip, in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood. Agricultural land in the area was also hit.
In a statement posted on Twitter, the Israeli army said a total of three rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, igniting air attack sirens.
He said one of the rockets was intercepted, while Israeli television Channel 12 said the other two landed in open areas.
A Palestinian man inspects his damaged farm after an Israeli air strike in Gaza [Mahmud Hams/AFP]
Israel has long held Hamas responsible for the violence in Gaza, while Hamas says Israel is responsible for the state of anger and pressure inflicted on Gaza residents due to the ongoing siege. Since 2008, Israel has waged three wars in the Gaza Strip, killing thousands of people.
In recent months, an informal ceasefire has been observed under which Israel has sometimes slightly eased its crippling blockade of the enclave.
But tensions have escalated as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he hopes to begin the annexation process soon, a controversial plan that has been denounced by much of the international community, including UN experts who say Such a measure would be a serious violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions.
Hamas warned Israel late last month that its planned annexation amounted to a “declaration of war.”
On June 26, two rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, triggering a punitive Israeli airstrike against Hamas facilities in the Strip. On July 1, Netanyahu’s target date to begin the annexation process, Hamas fired a rocket fire into the sea as a warning to Israel not to go ahead with the movement, according to reports.
Last week, Hamas and its rival West Bank-based party Fatah announced at a rare joint press conference that they would work together to combat Israel’s planned annexation.
The Israeli plan, which aims to annex all illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including the strategic Jordan Valley, amounts to a third of the territory and is in line with a proposal by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, which also foresees a demilitarized Palestinian state. in a mosaic of disjointed parts of the Palestinian territories.
But the US plan is a far cry from the aspirations of Palestinian leaders, who are seeking a Independent Palestinian state along the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Trump’s plan also seeks to disarm Hamas, which the United States has designated as a “terrorist” organization.
Some two million Palestinians live in Gaza, whose economy has suffered for years from Israeli and Egyptian blockades, as well as recent cuts in foreign aid and sanctions by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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