Replying Rockets From Gaza Strip, Israel Launches Air Strikes On Hamas-owned Facilities

Illustration of an Israeli air strike. (Wikimedia Commons/Natan Flayer)

JAKARTA - Israeli airstrikes rained down on the Gaza Strip before dawn on Thursday, responding to rockets launched from the Palestinian territories and landing on Israeli territory, Hamas and Israeli military officials said.

Witnesses said two training camps used by the Hamas group, the rulers of the blockaded area, were attacked, but no casualties were reported from these actions.

Israeli warplanes attacked a security post and part of an underground site used to manufacture rocket engines, the Israeli military said in a statement, citing Reuters April 21.

Earlier, a rocket fired from Gaza hit southern Israel, causing minor damage to a house, but there were no injuries, police said. No faction has claimed responsibility for the second attack in recent days.

Increasing violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories has raised fears of a return to the wider conflict. Since March, Israeli forces have killed at least 29 Palestinians in attacks on the West Bank. Meanwhile, a series of deadly Arab street attacks have killed 14 people in Israel.

In a statement, Hamas said the Israeli bombardment would only encourage Palestinians to "resist the occupation and increase their support for Jerusalem and its people".

Confrontations in Jerusalem's Old City, particularly at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, pose the risk of larger, wider clashes such as last year's 11-day Israel-Gaza war, in which more than 250 Palestinians in Gaza and 13 people in Israel were killed.

Tensions this year have risen in part because the holy month of Ramadan coincides with the celebration of the Jewish Passover, which saw an increase in the number of Jewish visitors to the complex, which is revered by Jews as the site of two ancient temples.

Palestinians see such a visit as a provocation, at Islam's third holiest site.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem, including Muslim, Christian, and Jewish holy sites, as the capital of a future state. Israel, which annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally after seizing the territory in a 1967 war, regards all of Jerusalem as its eternal capital.