Israeli airstrikes pound Gaza
Israel has carried out airstrikes on several alleged Hamas military sites in Gaza, claiming they are a response to rockets fired from the area early on Wednesday morning.
“Fighter jets recently attacked an underground site for the production of weapons that is used by the chemistry department of the terrorist organization Hamas and a site for the production of raw materials for the organization's rockets,” the IDF said in a tweet at around 5:30 am local time.
The Israeli military said Hamas bears responsibility for everything that is happening in the Palestinian territory under its control, and “is the one who will pay for the security violations against the State of Israel.”
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the Palestinian side, and the IDF offered no additional details about the targets it had struck.
Air raid sirens blared in the southern Israeli city of Sderot and other nearby towns shortly after 1:00 am on Wednesday. The IDF claimed that all five incoming projectiles from Gaza were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, causing no damage or injuries on the ground. No group has claimed responsibility for the rockets fired into Israel.
The flare-up comes amid a reported pullback of Israeli troops from the West Bank city of Jenin, following a major two-day “anti-terrorist” operation which left several dead. While Hamas, which rules Gaza, has somewhat distanced itself from the events in the West Bank, several officials from the group had urged young men to resist by “any means possible,” and even justified a car-ramming and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday as a “heroic” and “legitimate self-defense.”
