Gaza balloons again draw fire from Israel

JERUSALEM — Israel launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip late Thursday for a second time since a shaky cease-fire ended last month’s 11-day conflict after activists mobilized by the territory’s militant Hamas rulers sent incendiary balloons into Israel for a third-straight day.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the strikes, which were reported by media outlets and could be heard from Gaza City. Israel also carried out airstrikes early Wednesday, targeting what it is said were Hamas facilities, without killing or wounding anyone.

Earlier, Israeli police used stun grenades and a water cannon spraying “skunk” water to disperse Palestinian protesters from the Damascus Gate in east Jerusalem, the epicenter of weeks of protests and clashes with police in the run-up to May’s conflict.

In a separate incident, a Palestinian teenager died Thursday after being shot by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank during a protest against a settlement outpost, the fourth demonstrator to be killed since the outpost was established last month.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that a soldier stationed near the outpost in the West Bank saw a group of Palestinians approaching, and that one “hurled a suspicious object at him, which exploded adjacent to the soldier.” The military said that the soldier fired in the air, then shot the Palestinian who threw the object.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Thursday that Ahmad Shamsa, 15, died of a gunshot wound suffered a day earlier.

The Israeli military also shot and killed a Palestinian woman on Wednesday, saying she had tried to ram her car into a group of soldiers guarding a West Bank construction site.

The family of Mai Afaneh insisted she had no reason or ability to carry out an attack.