Israeli warplanes again unload on Gaza Strip
Hamas militants try to rain down fire with incendiary balloons for third day
Israel launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip yesterday for a second time since a shaky cease-fire ended last month’s 11-day war. The strikes came after activists mobilised by Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers launched incendiary balloons into Israel for a third straight day.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the strikes, which could be heard from Gaza City. Israel also carried out airstrikes on Thursday, targeting what it is said were Hamas facilities, without killing or wounding anyone.
The military said fighter jets struck Hamas “military compounds and a rocket launch site” yesterday in response to the balloons. It said its forces were preparing for a “variety of scenarios including a resumption of hostilities”.
Rocket sirens went off in Israeli communities near Gaza shortly after the airstrikes. The military later said they were triggered by “incoming fire, not rockets”.
Tensions have remained high since a cease-fire halted the war on May 21, even as Egyptian mediators have met Israeli and Hamas officials to try and shore up the informal truce.
Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and countless smaller skirmishes since the Islamic militant group seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Israel and Egypt have imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza, which is home to more than two million Palestinians, since Hamas took over.
Earlier, Israeli police used stun grenades and a water cannon spraying skunk water to disperse Palestinian protesters from Damascus Gate in east Jerusalem, the epicentre of weeks of protests and clashes in the run-up to the Gaza war.
After the crowds were dispersed, Palestinians could be seen throwing rocks and water bottles at ultra-Orthodox Jews walking in the area.
Calls had circulated for protesters to gather at Damascus Gate in response to a rally there by Jewish ultranationalists on Wednesday in which Israelis had chanted “Death to Arabs” and “May your village burn”. The police had forcibly cleared the square and provided security for that rally, part of a parade to celebrate Israel’s conquest of east Jerusalem.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian teenager, Ahmad Shamsa, 15, died after being shot by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank during a protest against a settlement outpost, the fourth protester killed since the outpost was established last month.
The Israeli military said a soldier near the outpost saw Palestinians approaching, and that one “hurled a suspicious object at him, which exploded adjacent to the soldier”. The Army said the soldier fired in the air, then shot the thrower.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said yesterday that Ahmad Shamsa, 15, died of a gunshot wound he received a day earlier.
Settlers established the outpost, which they refer to as Eviatar, near the northern West Bank town of Nablus last month and say it is now home to dozens of families. Palestinians say it is built on private land and fear it will grow and merge with other large settlements nearby.
Nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers live in 130 settlements across the occupied West Bank. The Palestinians and much of the international community view the settlements as a violation of international law.
Israeli authorities have evacuated the outpost on several occasions. They appear reluctant to do so this time because it would embarrass Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other right-wing members of the fragile government sworn in at the weekend.
Palestinians from the nearby village of Beita have held several protests in which demonstrators have hurled stones and Israeli troops have fired tear gas and live ammunition.
The Israeli military also shot and killed a Palestinian woman on Thursday, saying she had tried to ram her car into soldiers guarding a West Bank construction site. In a statement, the Army said soldiers fired at the woman in Hizmeh, just north of Jerusalem, after she pulled a knife.
The family of Mai Afaneh insisted she had no reason or ability to carry out an attack.
In recent years, Israel has seen a series of shootings, stabbings and car ramming attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians in the occupied West Bank. Most have been carried out by Palestinians with no apparent links to organised militant groups.
Palestinians and Israeli humanrights groups say soldiers often use excessive force and could have stopped some assailants without killing them. In some cases, they say innocent people have been identified as attackers and shot.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority exerts limited self-rule in population centres, as part of a future state along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Israel captured all three territories in the 1967 war and says Jerusalem is indivisible. There have been no substantive peace talks in more than a decade.