Israeli forces resumed attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip Monday evening, injuring two Palestinians, after injuring a Palestinian earlier Monday in a series of Israeli army airstrikes in northern Gaza, allegedly in response to a rocket that landed in an open area in the Ashkelon region of southern Israel Monday morning.
Witnesses told Ma’an that at least eight Israeli missiles were fired at several locations across the besieged coastal enclave.
One airstrike hit agricultural land in the center of Khan Yunis city in the southern Gaza Strip. A spokesman of the Gaza Ministry of Health Ashraf al-Qidra confirmed that two people were injured in Khan Yunis.
More than a dozen locations across the Gaza Strip hit today by Israeli airstrikes & shelling – 3 civilians injured https://t.co/zUrTH66M3s
— Ben White (@benabyad) February 6, 2017
According to locals, the airstrikes hit a “resistance” military post as well as an agricultural area east of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip, in addition to the al-Shujaiyya neighborhood in Gaza City, causing damages to several residential buildings.
The air strikes also hit agricultural lands east of al-Maghazi and al-Bureij refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip.
Palestinian factions released statements warning of the consequences of the ongoing Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave. A spokesman of Hamas movement Hazim Qasim said the current escalation represented ” a new chain in the series of ongoing Israeli occupation’s assaults against the Palestinian people and the Gaza Strip.”
While there is no electricity in #Gaza strip , Israeli warplanes firing illumination flares above Gaza , so they can bombing freely ! pic.twitter.com/ZyWL8rMf0C
— Ÿousef?? (@Joo_Gaza) February 6, 2017
The Islamic Jihad movement said in a statement that “Palestinian resistance holds the Israeli occupation responsible for the ongoing and future attacks on the Gaza Strip.”
The Israeli army released a statement saying that on Monday evening Israeli air forces “targeted three Hamas posts” in the northern Gaza Strip “in response to the projectile fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli communities earlier today and the attack against [Israeli army] forces operating near the border with the southern Gaza Strip as well as other incidents from Gaza in the last month.”
Hamas has yet to claim responsibility for the rocket fire.
(Ma’an, PC, Social Media)
