JERUSALEM – Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip early Sunday inretaliation for projectiles fired from the Palestinian enclave intosouthern Israel, the army said.
Military jets and helicopters struck targets linked to Hamas, the groupthat controls Gaza, shortly after midnight, with no reported casualties.
Israel also suspended cement deliveries to the enclave and cancelled 500commercial entry permits into Israel “until further notice”.
The action was taken “due to the continued rocket fire and launchings ofincendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip into Israel,” said a statement byMajor General Kamil Abu Rukun, head of the Israeli military unitresponsible for coordination in the Palestinian territories.
Since the announcement Tuesday by US President Donald Trump of his plan toresolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rockets, shells and explosiveballoons have been fired almost daily from the Gaza Strip into southernIsrael, provoking Israeli retaliation.
Palestinians strongly reject the US plan, seen as heavily favouring Israel.
The Trump initiative suggests that Israel would retain control of thecontested city of Jerusalem as its “undivided capital” and gives the Jewishstate the green light to annex settlements in the West Bank, which Israeloccupied in 1967.
Rocket fire from Gaza on Saturday night forced Benny Gantz, a leadingcandidate in Israel’s upcoming general election who was campaigning insouthern Israel, to take refuge with his team in a shelter, local mediareported.
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Former military general Gantz heads the Blue and White party and is thechief rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 2 election.
The Israeli army said its overnight strikes on Gaza targeted infrastructurebelonging to Hamas, the group that has controlled the enclave since 2007.
“Fighter jets and attack helicopters struck a number of Hamas terrortargets in the northern Gaza Strip,” it said in a statement.
Among the targets was “underground infrastructure… used as a situationroom,” it added.
There were no casualties from the strikes, according to Hamas securitysources.
Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008 but over the past yearthe group has gradually shaped an informal truce with Israel, under whichthe Jewish state has eased its crippling blockade of Gaza. -APP/AFP
