1675346546 Israel bombs Hamas sites in retaliatory strikes in Gaza Rocket

Israel bombs Hamas sites in retaliatory strikes in Gaza; Rocket sirens sound in Sderot

Israeli Air Force fighter jets were conducting sorties in the Gaza Strip early Thursday in response to a missile attack on southern Israel hours earlier, as a fresh round of missile alerts sounded in Sderot and nearby towns, the military said.

Israeli forces said their jets bombed a site where the Hamas terror group stores chemicals used to make rockets. It also hit a facility where the group manufactures weapons, the army said.

The Palestinian news agency Shehab reported that Israel had bombed “resistance sites” in the central Gaza Strip.

Footage released by Palestinian media showed fireballs exploding amid the densely populated coastal enclave.

Israel holds Hamas, which rules the Strip, responsible for any attack launched from the enclave, regardless of whether the group was behind it.

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“The strike deals a severe blow to Hamas’ ability to strengthen and arm itself,” the IDF said in a statement.

“The air force destroyed Hamas weapons production and storage facilities tonight. Any [rocket] Fire on the State of Israel or any attempt to harm the lives of southern residents will be met with the strength of the IDF,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Twitter Thursday morning.

The Israeli bombings came hours after a missile fired at the southern city of Sderot on Wednesday night was intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system, the IDF said.

Sirens went off several times in Sderot and other nearby towns as Israel carried out the airstrikes.

The IDF later said that 12 projectiles were fired from Gaza during the airstrikes, but not all of them were rockets. Some were anti-aircraft missiles aimed at Israeli jets and others were missiles aimed at Israeli cities.

The military said 11 of the projectiles detonated in open areas in Israel or in the air, and one missile missed in the Gaza Strip.

The Iron Dome air defense system was not activated in any of the cases, the IDF said.

The military did not react to the further attacks overnight, but only to the first rocket on Wednesday evening.

In the earlier rocket attack, a woman in her 50s was slightly injured after she slipped while running to an air raid shelter in Sderot, medics said. She was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment by Magen David Adom ambulance.

A large piece of shrapnel caused minor damage to a road, the municipality of Sderot said.

The rocket attack was the second in recent days, with the region gripped by mounting violence. On January 26, Palestinian militants fired two rockets at Israel in response to a deadly raid in the West Bank earlier that day. Even then, Gaza residents fired a new volley of rockets at Israel as it launched a subsequent round of airstrikes the next morning.

Israel bombs Hamas sites in retaliatory strikes in Gaza Rocket

Rocket shrapnel in the city of Sderot after an attack from the Gaza Strip, February 1, 2023. (Sderot municipality)

The National Resistance Brigades, the armed wing of the terrorist group the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, claimed responsibility for the second round of rocket fire on southern Israel Thursday morning, saying in a statement it was in response to “systematic aggression.” by the Israeli prison service against Palestinian inmates.

Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and the smaller faction of the Mujahideen Brigades both claimed their fighters fired anti-aircraft weapons and surface-to-air missiles at the Israeli planes carrying out the attacks.

There were no reports of injuries on either side.

Wednesday’s attack also appeared to be in response to reports of crackdowns by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) against Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails, particularly women prisoners.

Pictures and a video circulating on social media shortly after Wednesday’s attack showed three Iranian-made 107mm Fadjr-1 projectiles, similar to the shrapnel found at Sderot, with the text on them: “The female prisoners are a red line.”

It was unclear which armed group released the footage, and there was no direct claim by any of the Gaza-based terrorist groups on Wednesday’s rocket fire.

The Prison Service has taken disciplinary action against so-called security detainees – Palestinians being held on terrorism charges – who are said to have been celebrating the recent terrorist attacks in Israel. Public broadcaster Kan said the steps would also be taken against female Palestinian prisoners, some of whom had been placed in solitary confinement and had their rooms searched.

The network said Islamic Jihad had threatened a response over the prison guards’ actions.

Earlier Wednesday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir ordered the Prison Service to shut down two bakeries in detention facilities that provided security inmates with fresh bread.

The minister said the rocket attacks would not stop him from taking action against prisoners.

“The [rocket] The fire from Gaza will not stop me from continuing to work to eliminate summer camp conditions for murderous terrorists. I give my full support to the Prisons Service to go to prison [prison] wings and restore order,” he said.

Israel bombs Hamas sites in retaliatory strikes in Gaza Rocket

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir addresses the press at Shaare Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem, January 28, 2023 (Courtesy Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Tensions ran high as the IDF focused an anti-terrorist offensive mostly in the northern West Bank to deal with a spate of attacks that killed 31 people in Israel in 2022 and seven others in an attack on Friday.

The IDF’s operation has led to more than 2,500 arrests in almost nightly raids. Also, 171 Palestinians died in 2022 and another 35 since the beginning of the year, many of them in attacks or clashes with security forces, although some were uninvolved civilians.

1675346541 204 Israel bombs Hamas sites in retaliatory strikes in Gaza Rocket

Israeli troops operate in the West Bank on February 1, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)

On Friday night, a Palestinian gunman from east Jerusalem killed seven people and wounded three others in the capital’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood, and the next morning a 13-year-old Palestinian shot and wounded two Israeli men near the Old City.

After the two terrorist attacks, there was also an increase in revenge attacks by Israelis against Palestinians.

The IDF has reinforced forces in the West Bank following the recent incidents.

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