The Israel Defense Forces carried out airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave, the army announced.
“In response to the rockets fired tonight, the defense forces are carrying out attacks in the Gaza Strip,” targeting two Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) military installations, he said.
“Israeli warplanes attacked an underground weapons factory used by the Hamas terrorist organization’s chemical department, as well as a Hamas rocket raw material factory in the Gaza Strip,” a military spokesman said.
A Palestinian security forces source said Israeli airstrikes hit a Hamas military site in the northern Gaza Strip, but said there were no injuries.
The Israeli army said five rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip, all of which were intercepted. So far, no Palestinian organization has claimed responsibility for the shooting.
The exchange of attacks came as the Israeli army withdrew from the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, where it launched the biggest military operation in recent years on Monday.
The Israeli defense forces have mobilized hundreds of soldiers, as well as ‘drones’ [veículos aéreos não tripulados] and bulldozers, which bulldozed the streets of the refugee camp.
The operation led to clashes with the militias in which 12 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed and more than 100 Palestinians were injured, 20 of them in serious condition, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported.
Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip and considered a terrorist group by both Israel and the United States, had threatened to retaliate.
On Tuesday, a Palestinian was shot dead after running over and stabbing people in Tel Aviv. Seven people were injured in an attack that Hamas called a “heroic revenge”.
“The refugee camp is facing a disastrous situation,” Jenin mayor Nidal Abu Saleh told Agence France-Presse, referring to cuts in power and water supplies.
Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila called the Israeli operation “an aggression that defies international law” at a press conference on Tuesday night.
The fighting forced “some 3,000” people to flee the refugee camp, where some 18,000 Palestinians lived, Jenin deputy governor Kamal Abu al-Roub said.
The Arab League announced on Tuesday that it would call an emergency meeting, while Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, Arab countries with diplomatic relations with Israel, denounced the operation.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Tuesday denounced the violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank and said it “must stop.”
Source: TSF
