Israeli airforce targets Hamas site after Gaza rocket attacks
UK academic rejects Israeli prize in ‘political choice’
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip, May 25, (Agencies): The Israeli military says its aircraft have struck two Hamas militant sites in southern Gaza in response to rocket fire toward Israel.
No one was harmed in Thursday’s airstrikes or in the rocket attacks that preceded them.
Gaza militants have carried out only sporadic rocket fire toward Israel since the end of a 50-day war in 2014. The military says nine rockets have struck Israel so far in 2016, a steep drop off from previous periods. Israel typically responds to the attacks with pinpoint reprisals against Hamas installations that cause no casualties in order to prevent a further escalation.
Recent rocket fire has often been carried out by Salafi groups who oppose Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Nonetheless, Israel says it holds Hamas responsible for any attacks coming from territory it controls.
A statement from Ajnad Beit al-Maqdis, a small Salafist jihadi group, claimed the rocket attack, which came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sealed a deal to bring hardline nationalist Avigdor Lieberman into his coalition as defence minister.
“We announce our responsibility for targeting the Nahal Oz military base with a missile,” it said. According to the army, nine projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip -- which is run by Islamist movement Hamas -- have hit Israel since the start of 2016.
Smaller, more radical Islamist groups have often been blamed, with Hamas forces either unwilling or unable to prevent the rocket fire.
The statement from the Salafists accused Hamas of carrying out a campaign against the “mujahideen”.
In its statement the Israeli army repeated its policy of holding “Hamas accountable for all attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas’s military wing confirmed the strikes targeted one of its bases near Rafah in southern Gaza and in the Nuseirat refugee camp, causing no casualties.
Lieberman has over the years threatened action on Gaza and its Hamas rulers.
He recently said that if he became defence minister, he would give Hamas’s Gaza leader Ismail Haniya 48 hours to return detained Israelis and soldiers’ bodies “or you’re dead”.
Meanwhile, a prominent British academic said Thursday she had turned down a prestigious Israeli award for political reasons, in what looked to be the latest attempt by Western activists to boycott the Jewish state.
Catherine Hall, a history professor at University College London, said her rejection of $300,000 in prize money from The Dan David Foundation was “an independent political choice.” She declined to elaborate, but her stance appeared to be inspired by the international BDS movement, which calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
In a statement to the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, a pro-BDS group, Hall announced that she was withdrawn from the prize “after many discussions with those who are deeply involved with the politics of IsraelPalestine, but with differing views as to how best to act.”