JAKARTA - Palestinian militants fired rockets at a city in southern Israel on Saturday, June 18. The gunfire sparked Israeli air strikes, after the area had been relatively quiet for months.
There have been no reports of casualties in Gaza or Israel. Israel intercepted the rocket launched towards the city of Ashkelon, setting off air raid sirens and sending residents to bomb shelters.
The Zionist state accused Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, of firing the rocket.
"In response to the rocket attack, Israeli Defense Forces aircraft struck a number of Hamas terror targets in the Gaza Strip," the Israeli military said in a statement.
A spokesman for Hamas' political wing, Hazem Qassem, declined to comment on the Israeli allegations and referred Reuters to the group's military wing, which has yet to comment.
The Israel-Gaza border has been relatively calm since May 2021, when Israeli and Palestinian insurgents fought an 11-day war.
While Saturday's cross-border fire did not appear to signal a wider escalation, violence has increased in the occupied West Bank and in Israel in recent months.
On Friday, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank city of Jenin, where the military offensive has stepped up after men from the area carried out several deadly attacks on Israeli streets.
Hamas said one of the gunmen was among its members, while another militant group involving members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad faction claimed the gunmen killed as its group.
Qassem said the Israeli airstrikes on Saturday were "a helpless attempt to end the revolutionary act that is spreading across Palestine".
US-brokered peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza fell through in 2014 and show no sign of reviving.
US President Joe Biden is expected to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders during a visit to the region in July.
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