Israel hits Gaza in retaliation

Palestinian medical sources say no injuries in strikes

Israeli fighter jets on Sunday carried out a series of airstrikes on facilities belonging to militant groups in the Gaza Strip in response to rockets fired from the coastal enclave, Palestinian eyewitnesses said.

The witnesses told Xinhua that Israeli army drones and fighter jets were heard buzzing in the air and several explosions were heard west of the southern Gaza Strip cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.

Palestinian medical sources said that no injuries were reported during the strikes mainly targeting the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

The airstrikes were an Israeli response to the earlier firing of three rockets at southern Israel, said an Israeli army spokesperson. No group has claimed responsibility for firing the rockets.

Militants in the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave also fired at least five rockets at southern Israeli communities close to the borders with the Gaza Strip during the airstrikes, sources close to Hamas security told Xinhua.

Media outlets in Gaza quoted an Egyptian source as saying that Egyptian intelligence is in intensive contact with the Palestinian factions to avoid an escalation in Gaza.

A senior official of the Hamas on Saturday announced that a new round of Palestinian dialogue for inter-factional reconciliation would be held in Algeria at the end of December.

Khalil al-Hayya, deputy chief of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, made the remarks during a conference among the Palestinian factions on ending their internal division, which was held simultaneously in Gaza and the West Bank city of Ramallah.

“Algeria will host a new session of the national dialogue for the Palestinian factions at the end of December to resume the Palestinian efforts for achieving reconciliation and end the internal division,” he was quoted by a Hamas statement as saying.

Al-Hayya added that Hamas wants to restore national unity, not based on the needs of the residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but rather on a program and vision of resistance that stems from being a liberation movement that wants to end the division.

“There is a need for a Palestinian vision capable of achieving the right of return and liberation of the occupied lands and how to lead this activity,” he said.

In mid-October, 14 Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, signed the Algeria Declaration of National Reconciliation after a two-day dialogue hosted by Algeria, agreeing to hold legislative and presidential elections within a year.