Zionist Regime Warplane Targets Hamas Position in Gaza
In a statement, the Israeli military claimed that the aerial aggression on Friday night was carried out in response to an alleged rocket attack by the Gaza-based movement into the occupied Palestinian territories a few hours earlier.
“Earlier tonight, a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel,” the statement said, Press TV reported. It added that an Israeli “aircraft targeted a Hamas military post in the northern Gaza Strip.”
No report of possible damage or casualties caused by the Israeli air raid has been released yet.
The Israeli military said the purported Hamas rocket had been launched toward the Eshkol Regional Council settlement in the southern parts of the occupied territories and landed in an open area without causing any material damage and casualties.
On November 12, the Israeli regime assassinated a senior leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in the Gaza Strip, sparking a two-day flare-up which claimed the lives of 36 Palestinians. No Israelis died.
More than 400 rockets were fired into Israel by Palestinian resistance groups after the assassination. The volleys of rockets effectively paralyzed Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel.
Earlier on Friday, Israeli troopers shot dead 16-year-old Fahd Mohammed Walid al-Astal and wounded at least five other Palestinians, most of them children, east of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza Strip.
Local sources said that the Israeli forces opened fire on dozens of young men who staged a protest east of the city, noting that the rally was held although the organizers announced the annulment of the rallies slated for Friday.
Palestinians in Gaza have been holding weekly rallies as part of the Great March of Return since March 30, 2018, calling for an end to the crippling 11-year-long Israeli blockade on the small coastal sliver.
They also underline the right of return for the Palestinians who have been driven out of their homeland by the Israeli regime since 1948.
More than 300 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and some 26,000 injured since the demonstrations began, mostly by Israeli fire during protests but also by air and tank strikes.
Gaza has been under Israeli siege since June 2007, which has caused a decline in living standards.
Israel has also launched three major wars against the enclave since 2008, killing thousands of Gazans each time and shattering the impoverished territory’s already poor infrastructure.
