Israel targets Hamas military sites in Gaza
A Hamas military training camp on Friday came under missile attack in the first Israeli bombardment of Gaza for three months.
Palestinian sources said Israeli warplanes fired around 13 missiles at a site in Maghazi used by Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
The early morning strike was carried out in response to the launching on Thursday evening of three rockets from Gaza toward Israeli towns. No injuries or damage were reported in Thursday’s attack and no Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for it.
Sources said security chiefs in Israel believed the rockets had been fired from Gaza in retaliation for the same day killing of the leading Islamic Jihad movement member, Farouk Salameh, during an Israeli military operation.
Salameh and a teenage boy both died in the raid on Jenin refugee camp, in the northern West Bank, during which several arrests were made.
In August, Gaza was the center of a three-day military confrontation between Israel and Islamic Jihad before an Egyptian-brokered truce calmed the situation.
The Israeli army claimed that its aircraft destroyed infrastructure, missile factories, tank depots, and an arsenal of drones in Friday’s attack, that also led to a widespread power outage in the
Maghazi and Nuseirat camps.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza did not report any casualties.
An Israeli army spokesman said: “One rocket was detected coming from the Gaza Strip toward Israeli territory, and an interceptor missile was launched from the Iron Dome defense system.”
In a statement, Al-Qassam Brigades said: “At dawn on Friday, the criminal Zionist enemy targeted the site of the 13th battalion of Al-Qassam Brigades at the entrance to the Maghazi camp with a large number of bombs.
“Our ground defenses repelled the hostile Zionist air force, and Al-Qassam Brigades will remain the spearhead of defending its people and land and confronting the brutal aggression in every part of Palestine.”
Since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 and Israel imposed an economic blockade, the enclave has witnessed four wars and sporadic military confrontations, two of which were between Israel and Islamic Jihad.
Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, said: “The barbaric Zionist bombardment of the Gaza Strip at dawn is a blatant aggression and represents an extension of its open war against our people in all its places of existence.
Mom-of-five Rahma Al-Maghari, 44, told Arab News: “The sounds of the bombing were very scary, and woke up us and the children. I hope we don’t see a new war in Gaza. We have suffered enough. There must be a solution to all this absurdity.”