Israel carried out airstrikes on a Hamas military base in Gaza overnight from Sunday to Monday in response to a rocket fired from Palestinian territory, the army said Monday morning.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said one person was killed during an Israeli army advance in Nablus in the northern West Bank, where violence has been raging for almost a year.
The Israeli army did not comment on the strike.
But in Gaza, she said she encountered “an underground complex containing raw materials used to manufacture rockets owned by the terrorist organization Hamas.”
The attacks were carried out “in response to the rocket launch from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Saturday,” the army added in a statement.
After the Israeli attacks, sirens sounded in communities near the border with the Gaza Strip, the army said. No casualties have been reported in Gaza or Israel in this latest round of rocket attacks.
Nonetheless, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is witnessing a spectacular escalation of violence.
Since the beginning of the year, the conflict has claimed the lives of 47 Palestinian adults and children, activists and civilians alike, following the latest deaths in Nablus.
Nine Israeli civilians, including three children, and one Ukrainian civilian were killed during the same period, according to official sources from both sides.
In a move likely to escalate tensions, Israel’s security cabinet announced late Saturday that it would legalize nine Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank in response to a series of Palestinian attacks in east Jerusalem, including one that killed three people on Friday came.
New build cycle
According to a Security Cabinet statement, many newly authorized communities had existed for years and others for decades but had not previously been recognized as legitimate by the Israeli government.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. More than 475,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, where 2.8 million Palestinians live.
Most are in settlements that Israel has unilaterally approved, but some live in communities that have not received government approval.
The security cabinet also said it intends to announce a new round of housing for settlers in the West Bank, a move likely to draw widespread international condemnation.
Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned against settlement expansion during a trip to the region.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has also announced an increased security presence in Israel’s annexed eastern Jerusalem, the scene of two deadly attacks on civilians.